About Everything

Written on March 9, 2010 – 1:39 pm | by admin |

Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne (19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century’s new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. The line attributed to both Matisse and Picasso that Cézanne “is the father of us all” cannot be easily dismissed.
Paul Cézanne was born on 19 January 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, in Provence in the south of France. On 22 February, Paul was baptized in the parish church, with his grandmother and uncle Louis as godparents. His father, Louis-Auguste Cézanne (28 July 1798 – 23 October 1886), was the cofounder of a banking firm that prospered throughout the artist’s life, affording him financial security that was unavailable to most of his contemporaries and eventually resulting in a large inheritance. On the other hand, his mother, Anne-Elisabeth Honorine Aubert (24 September 1814 – 25 October 1897), was vivacious and romantic, but quick to take offense. It was from her that Paul got his conception and vision of life. He also had two younger sisters, Marie and Rose, with whom he went to a primary school every day.
At the age of ten, Paul entered the Saint Joseph school, where he studied drawing under Joseph Gibert, a Spanish monk, in Aix. Going against the objections of his banker father, he committed himself to pursuing his artistic development and left Aix for Paris in 1861.
In Paris, Cézanne met the Impressionist Camille Pissarro. Initially the friendship formed in the mid-1860s between Pissarro and Cézanne was that of master and mentoree, with Pissarro exerting a formative influence on the younger artist. Over the course of the following decade their landscape painting excursions together, in Louveciennes and Pontoise, led to a collaborative working relationship between equals.
Cézanne was interested in the simplification of naturally occurring forms to their geometric essentials, he wanted to “treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone” (a tree trunk may be conceived of as a cylinder, an apple or orange a sphere, for example). Additionally, the concentrated attention with which he recorded his observations of nature resulted in a profound exploration of binocular vision, which results in two slightly different simultaneous visual perceptions, and provides us with depth perception and a complex knowledge of spatial relationships. We see two different views simultaneously. Cézanne employed this aspect of visual perception in his painting to varying degrees. The observation of this fact, coupled with Cézanne’s desire to capture the truth of his own perception, often compelled him to render the outlines of forms so as to at once attempt to display the distinctly different views of both the left and right eyes. Thus Cézanne’s work augments and transforms earlier ideals of perspective, in particular single-point perspective.
One day, Cézanne was caught in a storm while working in the field. Only after working for two hours under a downpour did he decide to go home. But on the way he collapsed. He was taken home by a passing driver. His old housekeeper rubbed his arms and legs to restore the circulation. As a result, he regained consciousness. On the following day, he intended to continue working, but later on he fainted. The model with whom he was working called for help. He was put to bed, and he never left it again. He died a few days later, on 22 October 1906. He died of pneumonia and was buried at the old cemetery in his beloved hometown of Aix-en-Provence.

Self portrait, 1876
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

View of Bonnières, 1866
Oil on canvas,
Faure Museum, Aix-les-Bains, France ▼

Portrait of Louis-Auguste Cézanne, the artist’s father,
Oil on canvas,
▼ The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA

Uncle Dominique (The Lawyer), 1866
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Uncle Dominique, 1866
Oil on canvas,
▼ The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Bread and eggs, 1865
Oil on canvas,
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, USA ▼

Girl at the Piano (Overture to Tannhäuser). Portrait of the Artist’s Sister and Mother, 1869
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Factories near the Mount of Cengle, 1870
Oil on canvas,
Private collection ▼

A modern Olympia, 1870
Oil on canvas,
Private collection ▼

Paul Alexis reading to Emile Zola, 1870
Oil on canvas,
Museu de Arte de Sao Paolo Assis Chateaubriand, Sao Paolo, Brazil ▼

Still life with kettle, 1869
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

The black clock, 1870
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼

The railway cutting, 1870
Oil on canvas,
Neue Pinakothek, München, Germany ▼

The Banquet, 1870
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼

The strangled woman, 1872
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Village road, Auvers, 1873
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Green apples, 1873
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

The hanged man’s house, 1873
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

House of Père Lacroix, 1873
Oil on canvas,
The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA ▼

Flowers in a blue vase, 1875
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

A lunch on grass, 1875
Oil on canvas,
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, France ▼

View of Auvers,1874
Oil on canvas,
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, USA ▼

Six women bathing, 1875
Oil on canvas,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA ▼

Dahlias, 1875
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Temptation of St. Anthony, 1875
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

The bathers resting, 1876
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

Five bathers, 1877
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Three bathers, 1877
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Road at Pontoise, 1877
Oil on canvas,
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia ▼

Jas de Bouffan, the pool, 1876
Oil on canvas,
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Vase of flowers, 1876
Oil on canvas,
The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA ▼

Still life with soup tureen, 1877
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Still life with fruit, 1882
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Apples, peaches, pears and grapes, 1880
Oil on canvas,
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Poplar trees, 1882
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

The bridge of Maincy near Melun, 1879
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Leda with swan, 1882
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

Houses on the roadside, 1881
Oil on canvas,
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

L’Estaque, 1885
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Plain by Mount Sainte-Victoire, 1885
Oil on canvas,
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia ▼

Mount Sainte-Victoire seen from Bellevue, 1885
Oil on canvas,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA ▼

The artists’s son, Paul, 1890
Oil on canvas,
The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA ▼

Gardanne, 1886
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

Portrait of Madame Cézanne, 1887
Oil on canvas,
▼ Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA

Trees in Park. The Jas de Bouffan, 1887
Oil on canvas,
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia ▼

The Mount Sainte-Victoire, 1895
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

The banks of the Marne, 1888
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Boy in a red waistcoat, 1890
Oil on canvas,
Foundation E.G. Bührle collection, Zurich, Switzerland ▼

Pierrot and Harlequin, 1888
Oil on canvas,
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia ▼

The banks of the Marne, 1888
Oil on canvas,
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia ▼

Bridge and pool, 1890
Oil on canvas,
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia ▼

Still life with peaches and pears,1890
Oil on canvas,
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia ▼

Still-Life with Apples (Nature morte. Les Pommes), 1890
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Card players, 1892
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

House and trees, 1894
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

Woman with coffee pot, 1895
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Grindstone and cistern in a grove, 1892
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

Still life with fruit, pitcher and fruit-vase, 1894
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

Portrait of a Woman in Green Hat (Madame Cézanne), 1895
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University,
Philadelphia, USA ▼

Table corner, 1900
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

Still life with a skull, 1900
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University,
Philadelphia, USA ▼

The smoker, 1900
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Still life with onions, 1900
Oil on canvas,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Still life with apples and oranges, 1900
Oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼

Man smoking a pipe, 1900
Oil on canvas,
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia ▼

Canyon of Bibemus, 1898
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

Pine tree near Aix, 1890
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Lady in blue, 1899
Oil on canvas,
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼

Vase with Flowers. Chrysanthemums, 1900
Oil on canvas,
Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Philadelphia, USA ▼

A buffet
Oil on canvas,
Art Museum, Bucharest, Romania ▼