to swallow back his love

Paul Cézanne in his studio Les Lauves, 1904. Photo by Émile Bernard

The love (in Cezanne's art) is so thoroughly used

up in the action of making that there is no residue.

It may be that this using up of love in anonymous

work, which produces such pure things, was 

never achieved as completely as in the work of this

old man; his inner nature, having grown 

mistrustful and sullen, helped him to do it. He 

would certainly not have shown this love to 

another human being, had he been forced

to conceive such a love; but with this disposition, 

which, thanks to his reclusive eccentricity, was

fully ripened now, he turned to nature and knew 

how to swallow back his love for every apple

and put it to rest in the painted apple forever.

Can you imagine what that is like, and what

it's like to experience this through him?

~ Rilke on Cezanne

art by Paul Cezanne