Paul Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence in France on January 19,1839. He died on October 22,in 1906. In 1999, one of his paintings sold for over $60 million. He is considered to be the founder and father of modern art and cubism in painting.
His father was a wealthy banker, who wanted Cezanne to study law. In 1858, he graduated from the Collège Bourbon, where he had become an intimate friend of his fellow student Emile Zola. Cézanne entered the law school of the University of Aix in 1859 to please his father but abandoned his studies to join Zola in Paris in 1861. His father reluctantly allowed Cézanne to move to Paris to pursue painting.
The French novelist Emile Zola was his close friend from Aix, who also moved to Paris in 1861. His father provided Cézanne financial support for his stay at Paris. The 1860s were beginnings of an era of Impressionism. Cézanne met many of the key impressionists in Paris, Camille Pissarro, Oscar-Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Fdgar Degas. The impressionist group met at the Café Guerbois in Paris. He briefly attended the Atelier Suisse with Camille Pissarro, whose art influenced his own. In 1862, Cézanne began long friendships with Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
His paintings were displayed in the 1863 Salon des Refusés, as works not accepted by the jury of the official Paris Salon. The Salon jury repeatedly rejected Cézanne’s submissions each year from 1864 to 1869.
In his early romantic period from 1864 to 1870 his paintings dealt with subjects of violence and fantasy in heavy colors and darker tones, extremely personal in nature. Later Cezanne blended his works like other impressionists with lighter brush strkes of pure color showing the effects of illumination by light. His still life paintings are pure delight to watch. He retains the warmth and richness of the fruits (apples) the table cloth, basket and teapot showing the expert treatment of light with color. He concentrated on still lifes, studies of bathers, and especially the Mont Sainte-Victoire. Each of these paintings show the warmth of impressionism, typical masterpieces from Cézanne.
In 1870, during the French-German War, Cézanne left Paris for Aix-en-Provence and then nearby L’Estaque, where he continued to paint. From 1876 to 1879, his works were again rejected for the Salon. Cézanne joined the Impressionists in their third exhibition in 1877.
In 1882, the Salon accepted his work, as Georges Rivière was one of the critics who supported his art.
Cezanne was highly self-critical, in portrayal the human figures. He destroyed many unfinished. However his fellow painters saw his new and original style as a necessary variation from Impressionism. Famous painters Van Gogh and Gauguin were his admirers. The intensity of his color, coupled with architectuaral composition, Cézanne had blended impressionism his highly original style. He is considered to be the father of modern art. |
