‘Happy Birthday Paul Cezanne!)

  

Paul Cezanne

 Today is the birthday of Paul Cezanne the French Post impressionist (1839 – 1906).  Cezanne, son of a banker in Province, he came to fame relatively late in life  He studied law before entering his father’s bank (1859 -61) but left to study art in Paris at Académie Suisse, where he met Pissarro, Monet and many other painters though he failed his entrance exam for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.  Pissarro became an important influence in Cezanne’s early career, introducing him to some of the techniques of impressionism.  But Cezanne wanted to lend more weight to, what he referred as the lack of structure of impressionist painting;-

“I want to make of impressionism something solid and lasting like the art in the museums” 

 

 

 

 

mount sainte victoire

Early in his career, Cezanne used to paint from memory rather than use actual models , though later in his career, the artist  preferred to work from his own observation of nature and the permanancy of classical composition.  Cezanne painted still lifes and Landscapes for a long time and was obsessed with the geometric shapes of the cone, cylinder and sphere which appear in nature, as well as colour as  tone. In his early work his  main concern was with the figure within the landscape. 

 

The Bathers Cezanne

 

Cezanne was very influential towards other artists and is sometimes called the ‘father of modern art’ as he paved the way towards abstraction and Cubism.  This can be seen by the strong geometry element that lies within his work, coupled with solidity and depth of volume and form.  This flattening of space and form did indeed go a long  some way to influencing  Picasso and cubism.   Picasso who didn’t give praise lightly, had this to say about Cezanne: 

“My one and only master . . . Cezanne was like the father of us all”.

There are a lot more of artist’s birthdays – look in my categoreis

For a more detailed look at this artists life HERE and HERE

THIS  site has a lot of his work

PS………