At the beginning of the twentieth century, Denis (like many others) observed that artists of his own age were being dehumanized by the leveling effects of modern urban life mechanization, commodification, standardization, social regulation-all leading to impoverishment of both intellectual and spiritual experience. He argued that the remedy could be found in an "abstract ideal, the expression of inner [mental] life or a simple decoration for the pleasure of the eyes." Under the circumstances, the representational arts would strive to mask out dull environmental realities, "evolving toward abstraction." However much this kind of "abstraction" might appeal to the intellect and imagination (subjective "inner life"), it would retain a distinct material component, located in a purified form and a straightforward procedure (the objective "beauty" of "a simple decoration"). Cézanne was exemplary because his marks appeared independent of any strict mimetic function and were also very physical, therefore representing a material (not conceptual) abstraction of the painting process. This was an aestheticized, humanized materialism, intense in both sensation and spirit; it seemed fit to counter the anesthetizing materialism of modern bourgeois existence.
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