AN APPRECIATION: Paul Cezanne Paul Cezanne by Camile Pissarro
One of the original Impressionists, Paul Cezanne went his own way to develop a unique approach to art. In the process, he opened the door for much of the art of the 20th century.
Career Paul Cezanne was born in 1839 in the French town of Aix-en-Provence. While Cezanne ventured away from his hometown many times, Aix would remain his stronghold throughout his life. His father had built a fortune. He started with a hat shop. Inasmuch as hats were made from rabbit pelts in those days, he branched out into trading rabbit pelts. With the money he made from that trade, he opened a bank that was successful throughout Paul's life. As a result, Paul and his two sisters were raised in a prosperous bourgeois environment. Paul attended a primary school, the St. Joseph School and finally College Bourbon. It was at the latter school that he formed a friendship with Emile Zola, who was to play a significant role in Paul's life. During his last two years at College Bourbon, Paul also attended the Free Municipal School of Drawing in Aix. To please his father, Paul enrolled in the law school of the University of Aix. However, he had no interest in the law and eventually dropped out in order to pursue his interest in art. This did not please his father but eventually the elder Cezanne provided his son with an allowance, which enabled him to follow his dream. Zola had already moved to Paris, which was then in the process of an intellectual and cultural renaissance. Cezanne decided to follow. However, he was refused admission to the official art school in Paris, the Academie des Beaux Arts. He also felt intimidated by the skill of the other artists he met in Paris. Consequently, despite Zola's attempts to encourage his friend's artistic ambition, Cezanne returned to Aix after only five months and took a job in his father's bank. During his time in Aix, Cezanne's wounds healed and his resolve to become an artist returned. Therefore, he went back to Paris. In order to develop his skills, Cezanne took to visiting the Louvre where he made copies of the works of the old masters. He also enrolled in the Academie Swiss, a studio with live models frequented by aspiring artists. It was there that he met Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro, the founders of the Impressionist movement. Cezanne did not immediately adopt the Impressionist approach, however. In part this was due to Cezanne's awkward personality, which made it difficult for him to fit in at the informal debates and social interactions his new friends enjoyed at the Cafe Guerbois. In addition, Cezanne's primary influences at this point were Gustave Courbet and Eugene Delacroix and he was intent on developing a style that harmonized the approaches of his idols. As a result, Cezanne's work during this period was characterized by a dark palette, high contrasts, thick paints applied with a palette knife and vigorous almost violent brushstrokes. Each year beginning in 1863, he submitted works for exhibition at the prestigious Paris Salon. However, each year, his submissions were rejected. (The one and only time his work was accepted by the Salon came in 1882). The Franco-Prussian War intervened. Cezanne, along with his mistress, Marie-Hortense Fiquet, fled to L'Estaqne, a small town on the Mediterranean to avoid the military draft. Impressed by the light there, Cezanne started to think about changing his style. L'Estaque became a place that Cezanne would return to again and again for refuge. After the war ended, Cezanne moved near to the town of Pontoise outside Paris. Pissarro was living there and the two artists would go on painting expeditions together. Under Pissaro's influence, Cezanne's palette became brighter and his style more like those of the other Impressionists. At the same time, Pissarro's work during this period shows Cezanne's influence. The Paris Salon was the key to financial success for artists. It was the official seal of approval that persuaded the public that an artist's work was worth buying. However, the jury that decided which works would be exhibited was quite conservative and preferred paintings with historical, Biblical or Classical themes done in the style taught at the Academie des Beaux Arts. Cezanne was not the only young artist to have works rejected by the Salon. Indeed, most – but not all – of the crowd at the Cafe Guerbois had had their works rejected. Therefore, a group of these artists decided to come together to put on their own exhibition. The works Cezanne showed at the First Impressionist Exhibiton of 1874 were some of the works most harshly attacked by the critics. Hurt by the experience, Cezanne returned for the Third Impressionist Exhibition in 1877 but then stopped showing with the group. His association with the other artists ended although he did remain friends with Pissarro, Renoir and Monet. Because of the allowance Cezanne received from his father, selling his paintings was not crucial to his survival. However, this arrangement did make him more vulnerable to his father's criticisms, which he was subjected to on his visits to Aix. Nonetheless, Cezanne became more and more isolated, working on developing his own style but seldom showing his work. 1886 was a year of change for Cezanne. He fell out with Zola over a novel that Zola had written about a failed artist who sounded suspiciously like Cezanne. In April, Cezanne finally married Hortense. A few months later, his father died. As a result, Cezanne was now financially independent. By 1888, Cezanne had settled in the family mansion in Aix. In 1895, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard put on a one-man show of Cezanne's works. It marked a turning point in Cezanne's artistic fortunes. His reputation grew and his works began to sell. He exhibited at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900. Two of his works were among the works accepted by the French government as part of the Caillebotte bequest and these were on exhibition at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris. The National Gallery in Berlin purchased one of Cezanne's works. Still, Cezanne remained in isolation in Aix. He was estranged from Hortense. His mother - - whom he had been very close to - - died in 1897. Nonetheless, each day he would rise early and work on his art. Usually, this would involve plein air (outdoors) painting, a practice that he had been fond of since his days working along side Pissarro. On one such expedition, he caught a chill which, complicated by the diabetes he had long suffered from, developed into pneumonia. Cezanne died on October 22, 1906. Personal life Cezanne had a difficult personality. He was shy, insecure and found it difficult to interact with people. Indeed, it has been said that Pissarro's influence on Cezanne in the early 1870s came about because the famously-tolerant Pissaro was the only one of the group who could tolerate Cezanne for extended periods. Hortense sat for numerous portraits for her husband. Together, they had a son, also named Paul. However, the couple's relationship was not harmonious. By 1888, she and her son were living in Paris while Cezanne was living in Aix. Eventually, she moved to Aix but they maintained separate rooms. Analysis Although Cezanne's style approached that of the other Impressionists during the early 1870s, his objective was always different. While the others were seeking to capture a transitory moment, Cezanne was seeking the permanent essence of his subject. In stripping away a subject to find its essence rather than trying to render what was seen, Cezanne opened the door to abstraction. Over time, Cezanne's style moved away from the Impressionists. Whereas their trademark was the quick development of a picture, Cezanne came to take a long time to construct a picture. He followed the same approach regardless of whether he was doing a landscape, a portrait, figures or a still-life. Indeed, some of his portraits betray as little emotion as his stilllifes. Some of Cezanne's most pleasing works are watercolors done towards the end of his career. Like his oils, they show his mastery of dissolving and constructing form through an accumulation of brushstrokes. However, they are more delicate and inviting than when done with heavier paint. See our profiles of these other Impressionists and members of their circle.
Frederic Bazille Eugene Boudin Marie Bracquemond Gustave Caillebotte Mary Cassatt Edgar Degas Henri Fantin-Latour Paul Gauguin Eva Gonzales Armand Guillaumin Edouard Manet Claude Monet (Part I The Early Years) Claude Monet (Part II High Impressionism) Claude Monet (Part III The Giverny Years) Berthe Morisot Camille Pissarro Pierre Auguste Renoir Alfred Sisley Suzanne Valadon Victor Vignon |
Above: "The Bend in the Road".
Below: "The Hanged Man's House." 
Cezanne often returned to the same subjects. There are five versions of "The Cardplayers" (above) and numerous portraits of "Madame Cezanne" (below)>
Above: "The Avenue at Chantilly."
Two late watercolors by Cezanne - - "Trees" (above) and "Stilllife with Pears and Apples" (below).
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Artist appreciation - Paul Cezanne