Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French Post-Impressionist artist who lived from 1839 to 1906. He was born into a wealthier family in Provence that afforded him financial security that most of his artist friends did not have. Cézanne’s unique art style was a huge inspiration for cubism and the abstract art movement of the early twentieth century, and for such artists as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. His art was seen as the bridge between impressionism and cubism.
In his early college days at Collège Bourbon, Cézanne became friends with Émile Zola and Baptistin Baille and the trio became known as the three inseparables. Encouraged by Zola, Cézanne decided to be an artist (later in life, the two had a falling out… an interesting story for another time). His father initially wanted him to become a lawyer, and it took some time for Cézanne to convince his father to let him pursue his dream of being an artist.
In 1856, Cézanne enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts in Aix-en-Provence. His father also had him enroll in law school. In 1861, his father relented and let Cézanne enroll in the Académie Suisse in Paris to pursue his art full time. Once in Paris, Cézanne was introduced to Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet. He suffered with self-doubt and would repeatedly leave Paris to work in Aix-en-Provence in southern France. Throughout this period, his works were continuously rejected from the annual Paris Salon shows.
In the 1870s, with the advent of the Impressionist art movement, Paul Cézanne formed a close friendship with Camille Pissarro who nurtured his art. He exhibited his work at several of the Impressionist art shows and other venues. In 1886, Cézanne married Hortense Fiquet, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1869 and had a child together. During the 1880s, the couple moved to southern France permanently, leaving Paris behind. After his father’s death in 1886, he inherited a rather large inheritance as well as the family estate, Jas de Bouffan, in Aix-en-Provence. He wanted for nothing and was able to pursue that dream of creating what he wanted to when he wanted to. By 1888, he was living at the estate full time. So many of his works depict his home with great affection. Jas de Bouffan is open to the public today and still has its chestnut tree-lined avenue.
Cézanne was more interested in the second dimension of art than the third. Away from Paris and the impressionist artists, and strengthened by working in his home at Aix-en-Provence, he was emboldened in his art. He focused on the intuitive and pictorial aspects of art, such as color and lines, rather than the tangential art of interpretation and symbology. He was a huge influence on the modern art movement that began in the early twentieth century.
Ambroise Vollard was a renowned Parisian art dealer and was a huge supporter of Cézanne. Vollard bought most of Cézanne’s work in 1895 and gave him his first solo show. As Cézanne’s success grew, he became more of a recluse and spent most of his time painting in Provence in southern France where he was born and raised. Paul Cézanne died in 1906 at 67 years old from pneumonia.
Back to the Artists page.
You can learn about different art movements here.
