Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne wanted to make Impressionism into “something solid and durable” – and so became the father of modern painting.

Life

Born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839, the son of a banker, he went to Paris against his father’s wishes to become a painter; Émile Zola was his boyhood friend. He painted outdoors with Camille Pissarro and exhibited with the Impressionists in 1874, but was ridiculed. He withdrew to Provence and worked there doggedly for decades on still lifes, bathers and Mont Sainte-Victoire. Only an exhibition at the dealer Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in 1895 brought him recognition. He died in Aix in 1906.

Style & technique

Cézanne built his pictures from patches of colour applied in small, parallel strokes. He showed things from several viewpoints at once: table edges do not line up, apples tip forward. The result is a solid order of its own rather than a view through a window – Picasso and Braque built Cubism on it.

Look closely

• The strokes: small patches of colour running in the same direction, like building blocks.
• The perspective: do the table edge and the plate really agree?
• The shapes: cylinder, sphere, cone – can you spot them in trees and fruit?

Timeline

• 1839: Born in Aix-en-Provence.
• 1874: Takes part in the first Impressionist exhibition.
• 1895: First solo exhibition at Ambroise Vollard’s in Paris.
• from 1902: Late series of Mont Sainte-Victoire from his new studio.
• 1906: Dies in Aix-en-Provence.

Works in the museum

• Harlequin
• Boy in a Red Waistcoat
• Montagne Sainte-Victoire, from near Gardanne
• The Peppermint Bottle
• Château Noir
• Still Life with Apples and Peaches
• The Gardener Vallier
• Still Life with Milk Jug and Fruit
• At the Water's Edge
• The Bend in the Road
• The Artist's Father, Reading "L'Événement"
• Antony Valabrègue
• Banks of the Seine at Médan
• Vase of Flowers
• Landscape near Paris
• Houses in Provence: The Riaux Valley near L'Estaque
• Flowers in a Rococo Vase
• The Battle of Love
• Three Pears
• Louis Guillaume
• The Artist's Son, Paul
• House of Père Lacroix
• Man with Pipe
• Self-Portrait [recto]
• Landscape Near Aix-en-Provence
• Peonies
• The Artist's Son Reading
• Figure Resting Head on Hand
• Basket
• Study of the Allegorical Figure of the Genius of Health from Rubens' "The Birth of Louis XIII at Fontainbleau"
• Chair and Dresser
• Hand and Shoulder of a Boy
• The Mill
• Madame Cezanne
• Study of Houses
• Trees and Shrubs
• Victor Chocquet and an Angel for "The Apotheosis of Delacroix"
• Banks of the Seine at Médan
• Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen beyond the Wall of the Jas de Bouffan
• Geraniums