1. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
Summing up
• warm and cool hues to
depict depth and
surface
• planes of colour and
constructive
brushstrokes (to build
up forms with colour)
• Intense study of his
subjects
• Influenced by Delacroix
and Courbet = thick
slabs of paint.
• Rejected Impressionism,
looking for "something
solid and durable, like
the art of museums"
His work laid the foundations of the 20th
century art “C. is the father of us all“
(Matisse&Picasso).
CLIL - Liceo "Agnesi" Milano Silvia Caldarini
2. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
Early Career
• 1860 he began to paint in his
birthplace of Aix-en-
Provence and subsequently
in Paris.
• Cézanne’s early pictures=
romantic and classical
themes / dark colors /
expressive brushwork in the
tradition of Eugène Delacroix
(1798–1863)
• 1874 three works at the 1st
Impressionist exhibition not
fully in line with the
Impressionist technique.
• He did eventually abandon his
dark palette in exchange for
brilliant tones and began
painting out-of-doors
The Bathers, 1874–75. Oil on canvas, 38.1 x
46 cm. TheMET
Recurrent theme: landscape (= the
brilliance of en plein-air painting) + figures
(= drawn from his imagination).
Sources of inspiration = nature and
memory.
CLIL - Liceo "Agnesi" Milano Silvia Caldarini
3. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
From 1870s onward
In still-life paintings, he used
tonal variations, or
“constructive brushstrokes”
to create dimension
In mature works he builds
forms completely from color
and creates distorted
perspectival space:
the relationship of one
object to another takes
precedence over traditional
single-point perspective.
Still Life with Jar, Cup, and Apples, ca. 1877.
Oil on canvas. 60.6 x 73.7 cm. TheMET
Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses, ca.
1890. Oil on canvas, 73 x 92.4 cm. TheMET
CLIL - Liceo "Agnesi" Milano Silvia Caldarini
4. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
From 1880s onward
• From 1882 =
landscape pictures
of Aix and of
L’Estaque = he
concentrated on
creating depth.
• Organized system of
layers to construct
horizontal planes,
which build dimension
and draw the viewer
into the landscape.
Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of
the Arc River Valley, 1882–85, Oil on
canvas. 65.4 x 81.6 cm, TheMET
CLIL - Liceo "Agnesi" Milano Silvia Caldarini
5. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
from 1890s onward
A series of five
paintings of
Provençal peasants
playing cards:
•color gradations to
build form
•three-dimensional
quality
The Card Players, 1890-’98, 47,5 x
57, Oil on Canvas. Courtauld
Gallery, London
CLIL - Liceo "Agnesi" Milano Silvia Caldarini
6. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
Legacy
• In 1895, the dealer
Ambroise Vollard (1867–
1939) held Cézanne’s first
one-man exhibition at his
gallery in Paris. Cézanne’s
reputation grew quickly.
• Posthumous exhibitions
at Galerie Bernheim-
Jeune and the 1907 Salon
d’Automne established
Cézanne’s artistic legacy.
Portrait of Ambroise Vollard,
1899, Petit Palais, Paris
CLIL - Liceo "Agnesi" Milano Silvia Caldarini
7. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
Legacy
• In 1895, the dealer
Ambroise Vollard (1867–
1939) held Cézanne’s first
one-man exhibition at his
gallery in Paris. Cézanne’s
reputation grew quickly.
• Posthumous exhibitions
at Galerie Bernheim-
Jeune and the 1907 Salon
d’Automne established
Cézanne’s artistic legacy.
Portrait of Ambroise Vollard,
1899, Petit Palais, Paris
CLIL - Liceo "Agnesi" Milano Silvia Caldarini
Editor's Notes
Cézanne modulated warm and cool hues (= a degree of lightness, darkness, strength, etc. of a colour) to depict depth and surface and used his constructive brushstroke, rather than perspective or foreshortening, to build up form and structure.
Since 1890, his complex painting has influenced nearly every avant-garde movement in painting, including Cubism and abstract art.
In his early career, he was strongly influenced by Delacroix and Courbet, using thick slabs (= a thick, flat piece of something) of paint to give his early works a sculptural presence and intensity. He exhibited with the Impressionists, but eventually (= in the end) rejected what he considered the Impressionists' lack of structure, declaring his intention to make Impressionism into "something solid and durable, like the art of museums."
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour (=impresa) to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects. Cézanne is said to have formed the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. Both Matisse and Picasso are said to have remarked that Cézanne "is the father of us all“.
1860 he began to paint in his birthplace of Aix-en-Provence and subsequently in Paris.
Cézanne’s early pictures = romantic and classical themes / dark colors / expressive brushwork in the tradition of Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) = dramatic tonal contrasts and thick layers of pigment (often applied with a palette knife).
1874 he exhibited three works at the 1st Impressionist exhibition not fully in line with the Impressionist technique of quickly placing appliqués of pigment on the canvas.
He did eventually abandon his dark palette in exchange for brilliant tones and began painting out-of-doors, encouraged by the Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830–1903).
This theme will recur in his oeuvre. Landscape = the brilliance of en plein-air painting; figures = drawn from the artist’s imagination. The two sources of inspiration = nature and memory.
One of the most influential artists in the history of twentieth-century painting, Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) has inspired generations of modern artists. Generally categorized as a Post-Impressionist, his unique method of building form with color and his analytical approach to nature influenced the art of Cubists, Fauvists, and successive generations of avant-garde artists.
Beginning to paint in 1860 in his birthplace of Aix-en-Provence and subsequently studying in Paris, Cézanne’s early pictures of romantic and classical themes are imbūed (=to fill something or someone with a quality or feeling) with dark colors and executed with an expressive brushwork in the tradition of Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863). Dramatic tonal contrasts and thick layers of pigment (often applied with a palette knife =spatola) exemplify the vigor in which Cézanne painted during the 1860s, especially apparent in the portrait series of his uncle Dominique Aubert, variously costumed as a lawyer, an artist, and a monk (53.140.1; 1993.400.1). This kind of costume piece is reminiscent of Édouard Manet’s Spanish paintings of the 1860s.
While the three works that Cézanne exhibited in 1874 at the first Impressionist exhibition were not fully in line with the Impressionist technique of quickly placing appliqués of pigment on the canvas, he did eventually abandon his relatively dark palette in exchange for brilliant tones and began painting out-of-doors, encouraged by the Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830–1903). His Bathers of 1874–75 demonstrates a developed style and tonal scale in one of his first paintings of this theme, which recurs in his oeuvre. The landscape of Bathers has the brilliance of plein-air painting, while the figures, drawn from the artist’s imagination (Cézanne rarely painted nudes from life), reconcile themselves within this setting. The complex process of drawing inspiration from these two sources, nature and memory, would occupy Cézanne in his later work. The Fisherman (Fantastic Scene) (2001.473), of about 1875, shares the same bright tones as Bathers, while its subject recalls the themes of fantasy familiar from the 1860s; it too could be the product of two polar sources.
In still-life paintings, he abandoned his thickly encrusted surfaces
graded tonal variations, or “constructive brushstrokes” to create dimension.
mature works reveals Cézanne’s mastery of this style of building forms completely from color and creating scenes with distorted perspectival space.
the relationship of one object to another takes precedence over traditional single-point perspective.
In his still-life paintings from the mid-1870s, Cézanne abandoned his thickly encrusted surfaces and began to address technical problems of form and color by experimenting with subtly gradated tonal variations, or “constructive brushstrokes,” to create dimension in his objects. Still Life with Jar, Cup, and Apples shows Cézanne’s rejection of the intense contrasts of light and shadow of his earlier years in exchange for a refined system of color scales placed next to one another. The light of Impressionism resonates in this work, but signs of a revised palette are especially apparent in his muted tones. Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses, a mature work from the early 1890s, reveals Cézanne’s artistic evolution and mastery of this style of building forms completely from color and creating scenes with distorted perspectival space. The objects in this painting, such as the fruit and tablecloth, are rendered without use of light or shadow, but through extremely subtle gradations of color. In such still lifes as Dish of Apples (1997.60.1) of about 1875–77, as in his landscapes, Cézanne ignores the laws of classical perspective, allowing each object to be independent within the space of a picture while the relationship of one object to another takes précedence over traditional single-point perspective.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/avant-garde-france/modal/v/c-zanne-still-life-with-apples-1895-98-moma
From 1882, Cézanne executed a substantial number of landscape pictures of his native Aix and of L’Estaque, a small fishing village near Marseille, in which he continues to concentrate on pictorial problems of creating depth. Here Cézanne used an organized system of layers to construct a series of horizontal planes, which build dimension and draw the viewer into the landscape. This technique is appàrent (= easy to notice) in Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley (29.100.64) and The Gulf of Marseille Seen from L’Estaque. In Gardanne, he painted the landscape with intense volumetric patterns of geometric rhythms most pronounced in the houses. This picture anticipates the Cubism of Georges Braque (1882–1963) and Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), especially Braque’s impressions of L’Estaque of about 1908.
In 1890, Cézanne began a series of five pictures of Provençal peasants playing cards. Widely celebrated as among the finest figure compositions completed by the artist, The Card Players demonstrates his system of color gradations to build form and create a three-dimensional quality in the figures.
Continuing on this theme of the rural laborer, Seated Peasant celebrates the dignity of working-class citizens of Third Republic France (1870–1940).
In 1895, the dealer Ambroise Vollard (1867–1939) held Cézanne’s first one-man exhibition at his gallery in Paris. Cézanne’s reputation as a great artist grew quickly.
Posthumous exhibitions at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and the Salon d’Automne in 1907 in Paris established Cézanne’s artistic legacy.
Ambroise Vollard (1865-1939) was an art dealer in Paris, one of the most glittering figures on the art dealing scene of 1900.
In Paris in 1895 he staged a major exhibition of Cézanne's works after a 20-year absence.
One year later he signed an exclusive contract with Gauguin, who was living in Tahiti, and became the only gallery-owner in Paris to offer the artist's South Sea paintings for sale.
In 1895, the dealer Ambroise Vollard (1867–1939) held Cézanne’s first one-man exhibition at his gallery in Paris.
Although the exhibition met with some skepticism, Cézanne’s reputation as a great artist grew quickly, and he was discussed and promoted by a small circle of enthusiasts, including the art historian and critic Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), American painter Mary Cassatt (1844–1926), and collectors Henry Osborne Havemeyer (1848–1907) and his wife Louisine Havemeyer (1855–1929).
Posthumous exhibitions at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and the Salon d’Automne in 1907 in Paris established Cézanne’s artistic legacy.
