Paul Cézanne: A Guide to Cézanne’s Life and Paintings

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) was a French artist whose exploratory works created a seismic shift in the late nineteenth-century world of modern art. He inspired twentieth-century art movements that defied the conventions of Impressionism—primarily Cubism. He painted landscapes, still lifes, and self-portraits with expressive brushstrokes that came to define his signature style.

After receiving formal training in Paris, Cézanne contributed to the Impressionist art movement and later defined his own unique style of painting.

• Early beginnings: Paul Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence, France, in 1839 to an upper-class, bourgeois family. After a short-lived stint in law school, he left to study art at Académie Suisse in Paris. While in Paris, he often visited the Louvre for inspiration.
• Artistic journey: During the 1860s, tensions mounted between the art establishment and revolutionaries. Cézanne found himself among revolutionaries like Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Camille Pissarro—all Impressionist painters the Paris Salon, an established art exhibition, had rejected at one point or another. Cezanne's works developed a dark, moody air, and he would use a palette knife to create dramatic, heavily textured layers in a style similar to that of the Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix. The French painter Gustave Courbet also inspired Cézanne during this time.
• Impressionist years: After Cézanne married Marie-Hortense Fiquet in 1870, they left Paris for the south of France. There, Cézanne focused on painting natural landscapes in the Impressionist style. After having their first child, the artist Camille Pissarro invited the family to move to Pontoise, where Pissarro would formally instruct Cézanne in the theory of Impressionism. Vincent van Gogh also influenced Cézanne during this time.
• A developed style: When Cézanne debuted his paintings at the Impressionist exhibits in Paris, art critics abhorred them. Following this rejection, Cézanne secluded himself from the late 1870s to the early 1890s and developed a unique style depicting subjects that were simultaneously deep and flat. Works from this time of isolation include The Sea at L’Estaque, a painting of a seaside view, and The Mills of Gardanne, a painting of a pastoral landscape. He came to believe that everything in nature was modeled after three shapes: the sphere, cylinder, and cone. He carried this approach with him into his landscape, still life, and portraiture work.
• Later years: Over time, Cézanne became a master of composition. This is perhaps most evident in his Bathers series in which he explored the classic depictions of nude figures in nature. Though his health was failing at the turn of the twentieth century, he continued to create masterpieces. Chateau Noir, a moody painting of a castle obscured by trees, and his Mont Sainte-Victoire series of landscape paintings showcased the realization of his artistic vision.
• Legacy: Although Cézanne did not find critical acclaim until the decade before he died in 1906, his works ultimately served as an educational archive for many respected artists. Artists such as Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse purchased many of his works and saw him as a hugely influential figure. His unique artistic perspective would prove to be the foundation for Cubism, an art movement that abandoned single-perspective painting and embraced geometric shapes and interlocking planes to create form.

While his style evolved over the years, a few key characteristics define an artistic approach that changed the course of art history.

1. 1. Constructive brushwork: Influenced by the Impressionist technique of broken brushwork that Pierre-Auguste Renoir helped cultivate, Cézanne employed what art historians consider "constructive brushwork." This is the process of arranging single marks to develop a complex shape or form. Rather than using his brush to sketch or outline a form, he meticulously constructed his paintings one mark at a time.
2. 2. Skewed perspective: Cézanne's paintings—particularly his still lifes—portray scenes with multiple perspectives. For instance, in Still Life with Milk Jug and Fruit, the table, milk jug, and fruit all seem to be painted from various perspectives, giving the scene a warped sensibility.
3. 3. Vibrant colors: Though his early works were dark and moody, Cézanne eventually opted for a lighter, more vibrant color palette. These bright colors would become characteristic in all his most famous works. He employed color to give his paintings depth and to imbue them with feeling.

Though Cézanne has many notable works, art historians and culture continually reference these five paintings.

1. 1. The Card Players (1894–1895): In a series of five paintings depicting men playing cards, Cézanne painted the smallest and most famous version last. It features two men playing cards and minimal additional details. It is on display at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
2. 2. The Large Bathers (1898–1905): This oil painting first debuted in 1906, the same year of his death. Despite having worked on it for seven years, it was unfinished at the time of its exhibition. It is the largest of all the paintings in the Bathers series—which centered nude bathers as the subject matter—and is on exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Other paintings from this series are on view at the National Gallery of Art in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
3. 3. L'Estaque with Red Roofs (1885): This work of Post-Impressionism from Cézanne’s mature period depicts the village of L'Estaque (west of Marseille) set against the bay. Its vibrant palette is a celebration of color and a testament to Cézanne's ability to use color to create depth.
4. 4. Pyramid of Skulls (1901): During his period of isolation, Cézanne became preoccupied with thoughts of his own mortality. Pyramid of Skulls depicts four human skulls stacked on top of one another—all painted in dark, moody hues.

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