Paul Cézanne, Farmhouse and Chestnut Trees at Jas de Bouffan

1884 Oil on canvas at the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Throughout my life, I have had a series of panic or anxiety attacks, or feelings of vertigo. There are no physical tell-tale signs of what is causing this issue, but it does tend to come at times when I’m surrounded by anxiety or uncertainty. My phobic fear is big spaces, usually the type of rooms found in museums. Shiny floors, tall ceilings, and overly large paintings can cause me to have physical reactions, such as sweating, and not being able to turn my thoughts off of the discomfort I’m experiencing at that moment. As a self-theorist, and with my wife to help me, I go on free Fridays at the Norton Simon Museum. I have been going for the last six months, and one painting attracts my attention: the French painter Paul Cézanne’s oil on canvas, Farmhouse and Chestnut Trees at Jas de Bouffan.

The more I look at this painting, the more I feel like I’m looking through my anxiety. When I first saw the work, I couldn’t stand too close or spend much time with it because I felt a wave of fear coming over me. I asked my wife, Lun*na, a painter, to escort me to another room or painting. It’s impossible for me to go into the space, so I need her to balance me. But every month, I attempt to revisit the painting and try to stay longer. The Jas de Bouffan painting is very odd, for one, it is more of a portrait of the chestnut trees than the structure. The trees are beautifully painted and straightforward enough, but I found the structure, as it is painted, disturbing.

It took me months to notice that the structure is leaning forward, not straight up. The perspective of the painter’s eyes looks like he is on the ground looking up, in a particular and strange angle. But the trees and the building look like they came from separate landscapes. There is a tree on the viewer’s immediate left, and on the right side, a glimpse of another tree; with that, there seems to be an invisible line that, when one crosses it, the shift of the direction of the landscape is different. Or perhaps Cezanne wanted to start before that line, but couldn’t finish the composition, so he went beyond the two front trees, and it became a different painting.

The house's leaning structure, combined with the straightness of the ground or perhaps the textural aspects of the grass and ground, makes me feel unbalanced. The more I view this painting, the more it is like I’m behind the two trees, which are so different from the rest of the landscape. It is like there is a large painting in front of the painting. The image closest to me seems to be a visually consistent world, but beyond that is a quiet chaos. Or perhaps it is where I stand in front of the painting, and my bad eyesight can see to a certain point. Still, after that point, my eyes made things blurry, and it was hard for me to focus on the actual size or even the direction of the painting at that certain and delicate point.

There are two landscapes in front of me: one that seems logical and right, and the other that is an actual portrait of my neurosis at work. Paul Cézanne’s painting is the most accurate view of a psychosis that I face daily.