"The landscape thinks itself in me and I am its consciousness"

When I read this quote attributed to Cezanne, I couldn't help thinking of something Jackson Pollock told the artist Hans Hofmann who was visiting his studio one day. Upon seeing Pollock's work Hofmann asked, "do you work from nature?" Pollock’s answer was, "I am nature." Hofmann replied, "but if you work by heart, you will repeat yourself." To which Pollock did not reply at all.

We know that Pollock was prone to fits of anger (as was Gauguin, according to Merleau-Ponty) and bursts of megalomania. But his lack of response to Hofmann had perhaps less to do with feeling belittled and not knowing what to reply (or being rude or condescending) than simply enacting his own statement. If Pollock, or the modernist painter, is indeed nature (or its consciousness) then there is no need to prove anything or engage in debate.

"I am nature", like Gauguin's claim that "the landscape thinks itself in me and I am its consciousness", bears crucial implications for the conception of the artist - a self-defining artist - and his/her relation to the world.