Biography
Paul Cezanne was born on January 19, 1839, the son of a wealthy banker in the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence. Cezanne develops artistic interest at an early age and joins his friend, author Emile Zola in Paris in 1861 Father hates him becoming artist. .Cezanne's stay in Paris lasted six months. Though attracted by the more radical art forms in Paris, admiring the innovating works by Edouard Manet, he returns home full of self-doubt.
A year spent working with his father, however, convinced him to try a painter's life again.
Cezanne's early works were dark, suggesting the moody, romantic expression of previous generations. Cezanne fails the entrance exam for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts & his paintings are rejected by the Salon. Thanks to Pissarro, he is introduced to Impressionist painters such as Manet and Degas. 1870 At 30, Cezanne changes his style and his habits.
The black and morbid style changes as he concentrates on landscape subjects. This period is also known as "constructive", characterized by the grouping of parallel, hatched brushstrokes that have the power to build a feeling of mass. After the birth of his son, Cezanne moved with his family to Pontoise, where Pissarro lived. Pissarro introduces him to Impressionist painting and his work is finally exhibited together with other Impressionist works in 1874.
Cezanne reacted against the lack of structure in the Impressionist paintings and said that he intended to make Impressionism into "something solid and durable, like the art of the museums".
He did innovate beyond Impressionism and is ranked alongside the Post-Impressionist artists Seurat, Van Gogh and Gauguin.
Composing more than 200 still-life paintings, Cezanne wants to 'conquer Paris with an apple'. Cezanne records the slightest variations in tone and color observed over long periods as well as the forms from empirical geometry he considered the most frequent in nature - the 'cylinder, sphere and the cone'.
1881, moves to brothers house with view of Saint-Victoire mountain. He feels this mountain in his compositions is the essence of all that he had felt had eluded the Impressionists - firmness, solidity, permanence. When in
Cezanne's father dies, leaving him a comfortable inheritence. Cezanne becomes increasingly isolated from his family in Paris while he stays in Aix. He lives the life of a recluse.
1890 In his late fifties however, Cezanne's work attracts the attention it deserves & sells v. well. End of his life Cezanne's artistic search leads him to study the same subjects over and over, varying his approach each time. 'The Great Bathers', a monumental piece showing women in a landscape, is a revision of a favourite subject, first explored in 1875. In later years, Cezanne's health detriorated.
On October 22 1906, Cezanne dies of pneumonia.
Quotes:
"....he is the Father of us all......."
Picasso on Cezanne (re Cubists and Modern artists).
in his own words:
"treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone, everything brought into proper perspective so that each side of an object or a plane is directed towards a central point."
