Paul Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Province, a small town south of France, on January 19.1839. As a young boy, Cézanne did not dream of becoming a world famous painter. He had passion for his poetry and his friends (Hansen 16). One major obstacle he was forced to overcome was his father. He did not have a typical relationship with his father. His father worked hard all of his life to improve his family’s life and finances, and one day he was presented with an opportunity to open his own business. After starting his own bank, he became a very wealthy man (12). To make up for his hard life, he had high expectations for his son Paul. He wanted Paul to go to school, study law, and someday become a lawyer. This is the pa

During the early 1890’s Cezanne continued to concentrated on the beauty of nature. He enjoyed the splendor of the Mont Sainte-Victoire, which he painted many times from his studio looking across the intervening valley (See Appendix D). Cezanne became infatuated with this mountain and started to break the rules of perspective. In this piece the over time of repeatedly painting Mont Sainte-Victoire the background became more important than the foreground. The famous mountain seems to come nearer, grow bigger, and finally covers the greater part of the canvas. Eventually, the landscape becomes simply a symphony of wild splashes of color and moving shapes (Elgar 140-142). In addition to this, he concentrated on still lifes of studio objects built around such recurring items as apples, statues, and tablecloths. Gradually, Cezanne reduced the amount of paint used to the point where it was possible for him to depict volumetric forms with continuous strokes of pure color. At this time, critics began to praise his work, arguing that he had discovered a means of portraying both nature’s light and nature’s from by applying color only once (Lindsay 256). This was very unlike what Cezanne’s painters were in his early years.

In 1900, Cezanne was exhibited in the century retrospective of French art at the Paris World Fair. And then in 1902, Cezanne built a studio in Aix which he met with young artists who admired his work. From here Cezanne taught and discussed techniques of Impressionist painting (Lindsay 310-311). Then finally in 1904, his paintings were shown for the first time at the Autumn Salon in Paris which was the beginning of the influence on 20th century painting. From 1905, many of his works lacked the composition he strived to achieve and consisted of thick slabs of color carelessly applied to the canvas; many appearing to have been still under construction at the time of his demise. An example of this incomplete or rushed work is “Jardin Des Lauves” See (Appendix E). Later in 1906 Aix was hit with severe heat waves, and Cezanne found it extremely difficult to work under such conditions. In October of that year, Cezanne was caught in the rain for over tow hours. When he arrived at home he collapsed from fatigue. A few days later on October 22, 2906, Paul Cezanne died.

The years from 1865 to 1870 were known as Cézanne’s early romantic period (Lindsay 75). During this time, Cézanne met Camille Pissarro, with whom he painted outside of Paris. Pissarro was mostly well known for his many quiet rural landscapes and river scenes. In addition, Pissarro introduced Cézanne to the New Impressionist technique for depicting outdoor light (Elgar 64). And through Pissarro, Cézanne soon became part of the “Impressionist” group. During this time in Cézanne’s life, he felt isolated and alone with a few friends and only exhibited his work a couple of times. And to make matters worse he was criticized and rejected due to

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