Paul Cézanne
Watch this video and read the article, which discusses a painting by the Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). Note Cézanne's relationship to older artistic traditions and how he reflected on visual traditions (including Impressionism) and innovated through form.
Paul Cézanne, Still Life with Apples, oil on canvas, 1895-98. Museum of Modern Art, New York
Categorizing the style of Paul Cézanne's (Say-Zahn) artwork is problematic. As a young man, he left his home in Provence in the south of France to join the avant-garde in Paris. He was successful, too. He fell in with the circle of young
painters that surrounded Manet – he had been a childhood friend of the novelist Emile Zola, who championed Manet. He even showed at the first Impressionist exhibition, held at Nadar's studio in 1874.
However, Cézanne did not quite fit in with the group. Whereas many other painters of this circle were primarily concerned with the effects of light and reflected color (their cry may have been, "To hell with form!"), Cézanne remained deeply committed to form. Feeling out of place in Paris, he left after a relatively short period and returned to his home in Aix-en-Provence. He would remain in his native Provence for most of his life. He worked in the semi-isolation the country afforded but was never really out of touch with the breakthroughs of the avant-garde.
Like the Impressionists, he often worked outdoors directly before his subjects. But unlike the Impressionists, Cézanne used color, not as an end in itself but rather like a line, as a tool to construct form. Ironically, the Parisian avant-garde eventually sought him out. At the end of Cézanne's life, in the early 1900s, young artists would make a pilgrimage to Aix to see the man who would change painting.
Many consider Paul Cézanne the most influential painter of the late 19th century. Pablo Picasso, who rarely praised anyone other than himself, readily admitted his great debt to the older master. Similarly, Henri Matisse called Cézanne "the father of us all." The Museum of Modern Art in New York has historically organized its collection, to begin with an entire room devoted to Cézanne's painting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art also gives him an entire large room. Clearly, many artists and curators consider him enormously important. The problem is, when you actually stop and look carefully at his paintings, it is not at all clear that he actually knows how to draw!
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Source: Beth Harris and Steven Zucker, Smarthistory, smarthistory.org
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