Paul Cézanne

Self Portrait c 1875

Ceazanne's  Work

The French painter, Paul Cezanne who did little in his lifetime, and put all his time and efforts into pursuing his dream of becoming and artist. Cezanne today is known as one of the greatest in modern painting. Cezanne was also known for his unique ability in being able to portray what ever it is that Cezanne was looking at.  The Artist was know to some as the "Father of us all" (Picasso)

The Life

"On January 19, 1839 Paul Cezanne was born in Aix-en-Provence to a successful retailer and his mistress. Cezanne's domineering father Louis-Auguste Cezanne, and his mother Anne-Elisabeth-Honorine Auburt, did not marry until Paul was five. This may well have branded him with the stigma of illegitimacy causing him discomfort as a child.

At 13 Cezanne attended Bourbon College in Aix where he met Emile Zola (who went on to be a famous novelist). This friendship was to last almost a lifetime. Cezanne attended classes at a local drawing academy. When Zola moved to Paris to study he sent letters to Cezanne filling him with the desire to go to Paris to paint.

Cezanne's uncomfortable relationship with his father made it difficult to approach him about his dreams. Louise-Auguste was not interested in art and desired his son to gain a worthy profession." -The Worldwide Art Gallery 

Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte-Victorie (1904-1906)

His Attempt

"In 1859 Jas de Bouffan, an impressive 18th-century manor became the family home and Cezanne spent a year studying law. He was a successful scholar passing all his first examinations. His desire to go to Paris, however, finally overwhelmed his fear of his father and he approached him confessing his wishes to become an artist. His appeals were met with disdain. It was not until April 1861 that his father conceded and allowed his removal to Paris, supplying him with a basic allowance for his expenses.

Cezanne's stay in Paris lasted only six months. He destroyed many canvases during bouts of black depression and returned home full of self-doubt rejecting his chosen career. A year spent working with his father, however, convinced him to try a painter's life again." - The Worldwide Art Gallery

                                                                                               The lake at Annecy  

At 30 Cezanne seemed to turn a corner with his art. He changed his style and his habits. He met Hortense Fiquet. She became his mistress. Although they seemed to be very different, their relationship, for a long time kept secret from the artist's father, lasted for many years. The focus of Cezanne's art which had previously been black and morbid, gradually changed and he began to concentrate on landscape subjects.

Cézanne was not primarily interested in creating  an illusion of depth in his painting and he abandoned the tradition of perspective drawings. Perspective, which had been used since the Early Renaissance, was a geometric formula that solved the problem of how to draw three-dimensional objects on a two dimensional surface. Cézanne felt that the illusionism of perspective denied the fact that a painting is a flat two-dimensional object. He liked to flatten the space in his paintings to place more emphasis on their surface - to stress the difference between a painting and reality. He saw painting in more abstract terms as the construction and arrangement of colour on a two-dimensional surface. It was this abstract approach that appealed to the Cubists and they took it to an extreme.

Bibemus Quarry (oil on canvas, 1895)

Dates

1844

Louise-Auguste Cezanne and Anne-Elisabeth-Honorine Aubert marry.

1848

Louis-Auguste Cezanne becomes the proprietor of Aix's only bank.