Paul Cézanne

Lore & Background

Paul Cézanne was born on 19 January 1839 at 28 rue de l'Opéra in Aix-en-Provence, the son of a milliner and later banker, Louis-Auguste Cézanne, and Anne-Elisabeth-Honorine Aubert. He attended the Saint Joseph school and later the Collège Bourbon in Aix, where he became friends with Émile Zola and Baptistin Baille, known as 'Les Trois Inséparables'. At his father's request, he enrolled in law faculty but neglected his studies, preferring drawing and poetry. In 1861, encouraged by Zola, he left for Paris to pursue art, though he was rejected by the École des Beaux-Arts and attended the free Académie Suisse, where he met Camille Pissarro.

Reader's Guide

Cézanne's work initially provoked incomprehension and ridicule in contemporary art criticism. Until the late 1890s, it was mainly fellow artists such as Camille Pissarro and the art dealer Ambroise Vollard who discovered his work. In 1895, Vollard opened the first solo exhibition in his Paris gallery, leading to broader examination. Cézanne altered conventional approaches to perspective and broke established rules of academic art by emphasizing the underlying structure of objects and formal qualities. His paintings convey intense study of his subjects, and both Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso are said to have remarked that Cézanne 'is the father of us all'. His legacy lies in influencing avant-garde movements and forming the bridge between Impressionism and Cubism.

Did You Know?

• Cézanne's father was co-founder of a banking firm that prospered throughout the artist's life, affording him financial security.
• He created large-format murals of the four seasons at the Jas de Bouffan country house, ironically signed as Ingres.
• Cézanne's paintings were shown in the first exhibition of the Salon des Refusés in 1863.
• He received an inheritance of 400,000 francs from his father, which rid him of all financial worries.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"I've ripped it to pieces; your portrait, you know. I tried to work on it this morning, but it went from bad to worse, so I destroyed it.." — Paul Cézanne "I saw Monet and Renoir at about the end of December; they had been on holiday in Genoa, in Italy." — Paul Cézanne "I was very pleased with myself when I discovered that sunlight could not be reproduced; it had to be represented by something else..

..by colour." — Paul Cézanne "You wretch! [Cezanne is portraying the art dealer Vollard who changed his pose during the painter session] You've spoiled the pose. Do I have to tell you again you must sit like an apple? Does an apple move?" — Paul Cézanne