Last stop on the Hemingway/Lillian Ross tour of the Met

We came to El Greco’s green “View of Toledo” and stood looking at it a long time.  “This is the best picture in the Museum for me, and Christ knows there are some lovely ones,” Hemingway said.

After we reached the Cezannes and Degases and the other Impressionists, Hemingway became more and more excited, and discoursed on what each artist could do and how and what he had learned from each.  Patrick listened respectfully and didn’t seem to want to talk about painting techniques any more.  Hemingway spent several minutes looking at Cezanne’s “Rocks – Forest of Fontainebleu.”  “This is what we try to do in writing, this and this, and the woods, and the rocks we have to climb over,” he said.  “Cezanne is my painter, after the early painters.  Wonder, wonder painter…

As we walked along, Hemingway said to me, “I can make a landscape like Mr. Paul Cezanne.  I learned how to make a landscape from Mr. Paul Cezanne by walking through the Luxembourg Museum a thousand times with an empty gut, and I am pretty sure that if Mr. Paul was around, he would like the way I make them and be happy that I learned it from him.”

Wiki, close out Cezanne for us:

One day, Cézanne was caught in a storm while working in the field. Only after working for two hours under a downpour did he decide to go home; but on the way he collapsed. He was taken home by a passing driver. His old housekeeper rubbed his arms and legs to restore the circulation; as a result, he regained consciousness. On the following day, he intended to continue working, but later on he fainted; the model with whom he was working called for help; he was put to bed, and he never left it again. He died a few days later, on 22^nd October 1906. He died of pneumonia and was buried at the old cemetery in his beloved hometown of Aix-en-Provence.