Paul Cezanne

Afraid of offending his father, Cezzane went to great lengths to conceal his liaison with Marie-Hortense Fiquet—the subject of 27 portraits and the mother of his son Paul, as he was afraid his father would cut him off financially.

He died due to pneumonia, which developed from painting for two hours in heavy downpour. His son inherited his estate, but his wife squandered her settlement through gambling.

Following his death, his paintings were exhibited in a museum in Paris in 1907.

Paul Cezanne was born to Louis-Auguste and Anne Elisabeth Honorine Aubert, in Aix-en-Provence. His mother appears to have been the primary influence in his early years; his outlook and vision towards life and art.

He attended primary school along with his younger sisters, Marie and Rose, and then went on to study at Saint Joseph School, in Aix. He enrolled to College Bourbon (currently College Mignet) in 1852, where he formed an inseparable kinship with Emile Zola and Baptistin Baille.

From 1858 to 1861, he pursued law at the University of Aix alongside attending drawing classes.

Paul Cezanne’s early work comprises of figures in landscapes and plain landscapes, mostly produced out of imagination. He formed a close bond with Camille Pissarro in the 1860s, with whom he travelled on a number of excursions and painted landscapes with. The duo collaborated on a number of projects.

He was an established artist by the mid-1860s and most of his paintings used baleful, heavy tones and were characterized by morbid themes. Around this time, by Napoleon III’s decree, the works of young Impressionists painters were showcased at the ‘Salon des Refuses’ instead of the usual, ‘Academie des Beaux-Arts’.

Most of Cezanne’s early works were inspired by the Impressionist works of these dejected artists, but his strained personal ties with them, led to his usage of murky tones in his work. From 1861 to 1870, Cezanne painted a series of paintings with a palette knife and called these works ‘une couillarde’.

His later paintings and sketches from the period between 1867 and 1869 were based on suggestive and intense themes, including ‘Women Dressing’, ‘The Rape’ and ‘The Murder’. When the Franco-Prussian War commenced, Cezanne and his mistress settled in Marseilles, France, where he began painting landscapes.

From 1874 to 1877, many of his paintings were displayed at Impressionist exhibitions, some of which were severely criticized.

‘Compotier, Pitcher, and Fruit’, painted between 1892 and 1894, is considered one of his famous paintings, for its texture and shadows. The painting depicts everyday objects yet expresses complex emotions through the use of harmonious colours. This technique and depth is said to have revolutionized art during the 20th century.

‘Les grandes baigneuses’, which he worked on from 1898 to 1905, is considered one of his masterpieces and is often studied for the varying levels of detail and symmetrical dimensions and the positions of the nudes in the painting.