Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)

The famous French painter Paul Cezanne was a pioneer in post-impressionism. Living and working with the most famous masters of impressionism, being at the beginning of his journey under their influence, Cezanne, in search of his own style, went further than his colleagues. Having learned the art of conveying the miraculous states of nature, the artist delved into the search for the formative foundations of everything around him and tried to learn the inner logic of things. The innovative approach of the painter did not allow him during his life to receive well-deserved success and fame. Only time put everything in its place.

Youth Throwing

The future artist was born January 19, 1839 in a small town in the south of France - Aix. Paul was the first-born in the family of the banker Louis - Auguste Cezanne. The father, who began with the production and sale of hats, and then opened his own bank, was a very powerful man, the whole family strictly obeyed his will. The artist’s mother, Anna, Elizabeth, gave birth to two more daughters, Maria and Rosa, but she adored her first child, Paul, and always tried to support him. The painter himself idolized his whole life and was afraid of his father.

Since childhood, having a craving for drawing, Paul Cezanne from five years painted walls in the house with charcoal, even then creating very believable images. But only his mother was proud of his successes, his father dreamed of seeing his successor in the son. By the will of his father, Paul in 1849 enters one of the best city schools - St. Joseph’s School, from where, in 1852 he transferred to the sixth grade of the prestigious Bourbon Closed College.

In college, the future famous artist Paul Cezanne meets the future famous writer - Emil Zola. Their friendship, in the end, played a significant role in the fate of the painter. And then, in his youth, it was Zola who discovered to Paul the magical world of books and poetry. Friends often walked away from Aix, full of dreams about a beautiful future and pure love.

In 1855, sixteen-year-old Paul graduated from college, distinguished himself in writing poetry in French and Latin, and in no way realized as an artist. After graduating from college, Cezanne enters the Faculty of Law, on which his father insisted categorically. At the same time, in the evenings, Paul begins to study at the Joseph Joseph Giber School of Painting. To the joy of the young man, the father did not see anything reprehensible in this desire of his son.

The newly opened city museum, where paintings were exhibited, became the favorite place of the aspiring artist. Here, and in the classroom at the Gibert school, Paul felt truly happy, he had a dream to become an artist. But his father did not want to hear about such a turn in the fate of his only son, he still insisted on studying the young men of a law that was absolutely not interesting to him. The soul of young Cézanne dreamed of Paris, where he was actively invited by his college friend Emil Zola, who had by then moved to the French capital and tried his hand at literary work. In the end, Paul Cezanne still abandoned classes on law and obtained permission from his father to leave for Paris, where Zola urged him to begin to seriously study painting.

In 1861, the young painter moved to the capital of France and was preparing to enter the Academy of Fine Arts. Cezanne begins to attend classes in the workshop of Lewis, where he meets future impressionists Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet, who studied drawing, but already had their own formed vision of the development of pictorial art.

Pissarro immediately believed in Cezanne and predicted success in the future. But the young artist from the province felt like a stranger in the atmosphere of the capital’s workshop. The only friend he made there was his fellow countryman - dwarf Achilles Amperera, who subsequently enthusiastically wrote naked women. Paul Cezanne was very unsure of his abilities and his talent. At times, it seemed to him that all his pursuits were meaningless and he needed to return to Ex to become his father’s successor. Probably, the artist was tormented by remorse and guilt before the parent, whose hopes he did not live up to. These mental torment and doubts ultimately led to the artist abandoning his favorite painting and in the same 1861 he returned to his hometown.

In Aix, Paul began to work at the bank of Cezanne - the eldest, who was incredibly pleased with the "return of the prodigal son." But the joy of both was short-lived. Paul could not live long without painting and soon, from longing, again began to attend the Gibert school. After spending a year at home and endless conversations with his father, the young man again leaves for Paris, this time, having decided, by all means, to go to school at the Academy of Fine Arts.

True, in preparation for passing the exams, Cezanne suddenly discovered that he was completely alien to the art that he intended to study. Salon painting seemed to him unnecessary and empty. Plus, Paul again began to doubt his own talent. He worked hard, but his dissatisfaction with himself only intensified. The result was another failure - the artist was never able to enter the school of painting.

In 1863, he visited the Salon, where he saw the scandalous work of Eduard Manet, rejected by the public, "Breakfast on the Grass." This epoch-making work, thanks to which a real revolution took place in the art of that time, also changed the vision of Cezanne’s world. It was it that introduced the young artist, like many of his peers, to a new understanding of art.

Fateful for Cezanne was the acquaintance with Frederick Basil, which happened in the same year. Basil brought him to the workshop of Gleyre, where Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Auguste Renoir came from. Natural shyness, with at the same time absurdity of character, did not allow Cezanne to join the circle of future impressionists. As a result, the artist always kept himself apart, tried not to enter into discussions and conversations, and did not participate in their meetings.

In 1864, receiving the Salon’s refusal to accept his new work, Cezanne again abandoned painting classes and returned to Ex. True, he continues to write there, unable to abandon art classes. As a result, six months later, Cezanne again comes to Paris to offer his work to participate in the Salon, and again receives a refusal. Frustrated, the artist who has almost lost faith in himself, once again goes home with nothing.

In Ax, Paul devotes himself to portraiture. He works hard, but next year the artist’s works were not accepted by the Salon. Cezanne was completely desperate. He decided that his work would never be understood, but did not want to write differently. Arriving at the Salon again and exhibiting his works, he receives a mocking ovation, the audience openly laughs at the painter.

But something good is happening at the Salon - someone introduces the artist to Eduard Manet, who speaks warmly of the creative search for a young talent. Finally, after receiving a positive review, and even from his idol, Cezanne gains confidence in the right choice of a creative path. Returning to Ex, the painter becomes a kind of celebrity. They begin to recognize him on the street, local artists even try to copy his works, but the public’s curiosity was still rather hostile.

Temptation of St. Anthony

The work “The Temptation of St. Anthony” (1867-1869, E. Bürle Foundation, Zurich) refers to the early works of Cezanne. Using a classic religious plot, the artist depicts naked female bodies against a background of nature. Actually, the plot was just an excuse for openly writing nudity. St. Anthony himself, who, in theory, was supposed to be the central character of the picture, was allocated a modest place at the left edge of the canvas, and even there, his figure almost merges with the background.

Neither in the person, nor in the pose of St. Anthony can the inner struggle of human flesh and spirit be read. If the artist’s goal was to portray a Christian saint struggling with sinful obsession, then it could be said that Cezanne’s work failed. But the painter did not strive for this at all, he was only interested in female bodies.

Sharp contrasts of chiaroscuro sculpt the volume using powerful monumental forms. The classical pyramidal composition of the central part of the work itself seems to be irrelevant to the plot: the girls who form a vicious circle with their figures do not at all turn to St. Anthony. They exist independently of him. And only a skillfully arranged figure group located on the very edge of the canvas - St. Anthony and the temptress, who appeared before him in an exaggeratedly open pose, corresponds to the name of the work. This pair is built according to the classical principle of symmetry. The open pose of a woman demonstrating her body is contrasted with the closed pose of Anthony, who hastily smells rough clothes.

It is noteworthy that Cezanne did not portray beauties, he truly writes imperfect female bodies. By the way, they can be called beauties with a stretch: Cezanne is far from idealizing images, he writes simply - women. The impressionist influence is felt in contrasting color shades and reflections of the surrounding green on the bodies of women. However, Cezanne uses the find of impressionism excessively, almost bringing it to the point of absurdity, which brings his work closer to the work of the Fauvists, who have yet to enter the world art scene.

Personal life

A year later, in 1870, the artist became acquainted with Hortense Ficket, who became his constant model. The war that began in the same year with Prussia, Cezanne, together with Fique, waited in Estac (province of Provence). The painter carefully concealed from his family his connection with the model, otherwise an angry father could leave him without content, which was barely enough for life. Only thanks to the meager help of the father, the artist, who was not understood and not accepted by the public, was able to survive, therefore, even when Grotzenia’s son Paul was born in 1872, this most important event remained a mystery to all Cezanne’s relatives.

Soon the artist moved to Pontoise, where Camille Pissarro lived - one of the few who believed in the potential of Cezanne. Supporting a friend was very helpful. The impressionist Pissarro taught that you need to renounce your ego and write what you see, transferring to the canvas the real state of nature and not interpreting the world around us.

Here, Cezanne is introduced to Dr. Ferdinand Gachet, who was fond of painting and appreciated the "new" art. Gachet immediately declared that he considered Cezanne a great artist, and convinced him to move to his house in Auvers. Gachet’s enthusiastic perception of Cezanne’s creativity inspired hope in the painter. Nobody has ever been interested in his work and taken them seriously. Here, the artist felt the genuine interest of the entire Gachet family in his work and began to paint numerous landscapes, carried away by the impressionistic method of writing.

Bright personality

The painting “House of the Hanged Man” (1873, Museum d’Orsay, Paris), despite its gloomy name, is a sunny landscape. Masterful and unusual compositional construction of the canvas is like a collage and is based on the combination of different plans.

The foreground introduces the viewer into the space of the picture. On it we see an unremarkable sandy slope, with tree stumps in the lower left corner, placed here as a “starting point” for a gradual advance into the depths. The second plan is occupied by a building with a dark roof and a hill covered with grass, behind which an unsightly “house of the hanged man” opens, as if protruding from the hill and is a third plan of the picture. Behind it you can see the roof of the house located just below - the fourth plan, which shows buildings with bright red brick walls.

Following the artist, the viewer’s eye from the lower left corner of the canvas descends along the hillside, winding among the walls of buildings and uneven terrain and, thus, revealing the entire depth of space. And the more you look into this space, the more complex it seems. Cezanne conveyed the landscape exactly as he saw it in kind, without rebuilding it from a perspective, so the orange houses seem to be standing right on the roof of the nearby building, and the sprawling trees in the upper left corner of the composition are ridiculously piled right above the "hanged house".

It was such compositional absurdities, unthinkable for classical art, that enabled the artist to faithfully depict the world as he saw it. The painting “House and Tree” (1873-1874, private collection) on the compositional structure resembles a fragment of a previous work: the same unfinished foreground, a white stone building still grows directly from the hill, against which a branchy tree flaunts. The winding trunk of which, as if crossing the plane of the wall, "sprawling" along it, like a giant crack. Such a motif gives strange - exciting dramatic chords to the entire work, creating the impression of a secret that the house holds in itself, as if hidden behind a trunk and branches of a tree.

The canvas “House of Dr. Gachet in Auvers” (1873, Musee d’Orsay, Paris) is distinguished by the alternation of the first, empty, and second - overly filled plans. So Cezanne creates a harmonious composition. The depicted houses, which the artist densely sculpts one to another, as if crowded on this provincial street. With a careful look at the lines of their walls, it becomes obvious that they are far from even. Cezanne does not pursue the clarity of lines, on the contrary, he deliberately distorts them, just like sunlight that illuminates surfaces unevenly, depending on their texture and proximity to other objects.

Paul Cezanne writes only what he sees, without ennobling the surroundings, as the "right" artist should do. Already here the artist’s attraction to simple monumental forms is manifested, which will become a hallmark of the individual style of the master. Under the patronage of Camille Pissarro, Cezanne, in 1874, participates in the first exhibition of the Impressionists. Again, his work is ridiculed, however, his work, "The Hanged Man’s House" is bought by a very large collector, which inspires hope in the artist, tormented by misunderstanding.

The difficult life of Cezanne is well read on the self-portrait written in 1875 (Musee d’Orsay, Paris). On it we see a noticeably bald artist with an inquisitive and incredulous look. Paul Cezanne intuitively sought his way in art, which he walked alone, without meeting either approval or fame. The master’s works remained incomprehensible, and he himself suffered from lack of demand. Only natural obstinacy and waywardness helped the artist move forward, but constant ridicule and loneliness sometimes made him doubt his own vision of art. This caused distrust of oneself and others, which is visible in the painter’s gaze.

In the work “Love Struggle” (Bacchanalia, 1875, Collection by A. Harriman, New York), the artist turns to a mythological theme that allows a free image of the layout in the space of naked intertwining bodies. The expressive canvas gives the impression of an etude due to the underlined elaboration of the figures themselves.

A whole series of compositional methods aggravates the slightly overwhelming impression of a fierce struggle of fiercely passionately mate-lovers: trees hang menacingly, the low horizon emphasizes the vast sky, as if putting pressure on heroes, even swirling clouds with unusually sharply defined contours seem aggressive. The painting is based on the principle of theatrical scenery: cliffs with trees growing on them serve as the backstage. The lack of depth in the canvas, only emphasizes this effect.

An important meeting for Cezanne took place in 1875, when Auguste Renoir introduced him to the avid collector Viktor Choquet, who bought one of the artist’s paintings. From that moment their long friendship began. In 1877, the painter creates the “Portrait of Seated Victor Choquet” (Gallery of Fine Arts, Columbus), in which we see a friend of the artist sitting on a magnificent armchair of the Louis XVI era, in a relaxed home atmosphere.

On the walls are visible works of art that are part of the Choquet collection. True, they are not included in the "frame" as a whole, but are given in fragments or only indicated by gilded frames. The artist does not seek to carefully reproduce the decor of the room or photographically accurately convey the features of the hero. He creates a generalized image of a collector as an attentive and thoughtful person who can intuitively appreciate the artistic value of a work. The tall figure of Viktor Shoke looks somewhat comical on an old low chair, the upper edge of the canvas cuts off his gray hair, and the legs of the model and the legs of the chair are painted almost close to the lower edge of the canvas. This gives the impression that the collector is closely within the allotted framework of the picture.

One of the many portraits of Hortense - “Madame Cezanne in the red chair” (1877, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), which, incidentally, has not yet become the official wife of the artist, is unusually spectacular in its color scheme. The red upholstery of the chair contrasts with the greenish-olive and blue colors of Hortense’s clothes and the wall behind her, and also perfectly distinguishes the figure of the heroine.The work makes a monumental impression due to the maximum proximity of the young woman to the viewer. The upper edge of the canvas cuts off part of her hairstyle, and the lower - the hem of her skirt. Cezanne’s life partner looks to the side, and her hands with crossed fingers build a psychological barrier between the model and the viewer.

We see a very generalized transmission of the local features in the landscape “Mountains in French Provence” (1878, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff). Cezanne mentally disassembles objects into the individual forms that make them up, and then builds his own reality from them. This technique will continue to be a characteristic feature of constructivists.

Even more “constructive” are the works of “Houses in Provence near Estacus” (1879, National Gallery, Washington), “Mount Saint Victoria” (1886, National Gallery, Washington) and “House in Provence” (1885, Art Museum Herron, Indianapolis). Stones, hills, walls of dwellings appear before us in the form of generalized forms, passing through the prism of Cezanne’s analytical vision, which cuts off everything superfluous from them, leaving only the essence. All the outlines of mountains and fields on the canvas "Mountains in Provence" (1886-1890, Tate Gallery, London) are emphasized correct and geometric.

The artist is actively working, but the Salon still rejects his works. Cezanne is again ridiculed at the third impressionist exhibition. True, there is one connoisseur of the artist’s art, regularly buying his work - a young petty official working on the exchange, named Paul Gauguin.

Having passed a solid career, Paul Cezanne never became an impressionist. His fascination with the impressionist transmission of the image of nature and the light-air environment was replaced by a realization of the need for speculative ordering of the surrounding reality. It was not enough for the artist to see and reproduce, he needed to see and convey the hidden structure of the world.

Life ups and downs

In 1886, a number of events took place in the personal life of the painter. Firstly, Cezanne, almost against his will (since he was very passionate about the young maid in his father’s house), was married to Hortense, who, at the insistence of her family members, moved to the Cezanne estate in Provence. By this time, the son of the artist Paul was already fourteen years old. Secondly, a friend of his youth, Cezanne, a well-known writer Emil Zola, publishes the novel "Creativity", in which the artist prototyped the main character. The novel perfectly demonstrated Zola’s attitude to Cezanne himself and his art, ending the life of the hero by suicide. The painter took this gesture as a loud announcement that an old friend does not believe in the artist himself or in his art.Thus ended the friendship between the two geniuses of the era - a great writer and a great artist. Thirdly, the tyrannical father of the painter died, leaving him a solid legacy.

Two years later, Cezanne creates a wonderful double portrait of his son Paul, dressed in a Harlequin costume, and his friend, dressed in a Pierrot costume. The painting “Pierrot and Harlequin” (1888, A. Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow) depicts a scene from the Maslenitsa carnival festival, which takes place right before the post (in connection with which the second name of the painting is “Mardigra”, that is "Pancake week"). On the canvas, the father openly admires his son. We see the magnificently arrogant handsome Paul, who steps out of the wings, looking down on the viewer. Against this background, the detached Pierrot, bent in a rather ridiculous position, seems an obliging page.

At the request of Hortense, in 1888 the Cezannes moved to Paris. A year later, the picture of the painter "The Hanged Man", due to the projection of collector Viktor Shoke, was presented at the World Exhibition. But the work went unnoticed by the public, as it was placed too high.

Once again, the works of Cezanne were not seen and did not want to see, and his talent again remained without recognition. The painter was already in his sixties, health problems forced him to constantly change his place of residence, but he continued to paint and even realized his youthful dream - he created his own work in the spirit of the work “Card Players” by Louis Lenin, which made a great impression on him even in his youth.

The painting "Card Players" (1892, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) is a genre work depicting three young men at their favorite pastime. The figure of the observer in the background is cut off on the shoulders by the upper edge of the picture, thanks to her, in the compositional plan, the canvas seems incomplete. Striving for a clear and concise expression of the idea, Cezanne wrote several versions of this work. The final version of the canvas of the same name, created around the same time, amazes with completeness, conciseness and symmetry, in order to overcome the excessive influence of which, Cézanne cuts off the back of the right player.

The compositional and semantic centers of the picture coincide - these are the hands of two seated men who seem to frame a proud bottle of wine. The work is deprived of the strict genre that is inherent in the previous version. There is nothing superfluous, everything is very strict and extremely expressive. Players are completely absorbed in their pursuit, time seems to have stopped for them, the whole world is concentrated within two figures inclined towards each other. Here and now, in the layout of the cards, the most important is concluded, the game for them becomes a kind of sacred work, thanks to which the picture itself takes on a certain sacred meaning. Perhaps the bottle of wine on the red tablecloth has the traditional symbolic meaning of blood and atonement.

The portrait “The guy in the red vest” (1888-1890, Museum of Modern Art, New York) is particularly expressive thanks to the masterful use of color. The solemn combination of red and white colors is enhanced by the abundance of black, which makes the profile of the hero of the canvas extremely clear and contrasting. Cezanne does not avoid black, like many impressionists, but, on the contrary, introduces it into the picture as a form-forming element. The young man’s hair merges with the black drapery background, this technique, the master as if “instills” the model into the canvas space, at the same time giving it a certain tragic sound. The image of the person portrayed is complete and complete, even despite the fact that the picture does not contain specifics - neither a designation of time or place, nor a hint of the kind of activity of the young man in a red vest.

Subject compositions and landscapes

All the still lifes of Paul Cezanne are recognizable: with the simplest minimal set of objects (several fruits, porcelain vases, plates and cups), deliberately careless draperies with kinks and numerous folds thrown onto the table give the composition a decorative and unique expressiveness.

The painting "Still Life with Sugar Bowl" (circa 1888-1890, the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) is one of Cezanne’s most famous works. Here the painter refuses a linear perspective; we do not see a common vanishing point on the canvas.

We see a rectangular tabletop with white drapery casually thrown over it, lined with porcelain dishes and fruits, from two points of view at once: from the top and the front, which is impossible for traditional art, which, since the Renaissance, worked on the correct transfer of three-dimensional canvas on the two-dimensional plane space.

Paul Cezanne builds his still life contrary to the main law of painting - perspective. Due to the incorrect construction of space and distortion of perspective, it becomes impossible to determine the distance from the wall to the table, or to the carved wooden legs that are visible in the background, apparently, the jardinier. The relationship between parallel and perpendicular planes of the walls, table, floor and drawers also becomes implicit. The space deprived of depth and perspective, built with relative observance of geometry, makes a still life similar to religious painting, the style of which was created and approved before the perspective, and often ignored it.

Cezanne creates his own coordinate system in which each object gains self-sufficiency and in itself can be a "model" for the artist. “Extra”, at first glance, the section of the legs of the jardinier was introduced for a reason: this particular part, firstly, “holds” the entire composition in the upper right corner of the canvas and, secondly, serves as a powerful coloristic accent in the overall cold color background of the upper part of the picture, its brownish shades harmoniously resonate with a brown tabletop and warm tones of ripe fruit. It is no coincidence that the artist freely composes objects on the plane of the table without uniting them into groups - if we mentally remove any of them, the integrity of the composition will not be broken.

The same features are also characteristic of Still Life with Apples and Oranges (1895, Museum d’Orsay, Paris), Still Life with Drapery (1899, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) and Still Life with Eggplants (1893- 1894, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). In the first work, the role of fabrics forming the space with their picturesque folds is especially obvious. It is luxurious fabrics that fill the entire surface of the canvas. They make the perspective unnecessary, in the absence of the usual coordinate system, space loses three-dimensionality. A chaotic, at first glance, heap of folds hides the furniture and premises. It is completely unclear what the objects are on. Thanks to this effect, it creates the impression of emphasized decorativeness, and even theatricality, even more enhanced planar interpretation of space.

In this still life, the master extremely expressively works with color. Bright oriental fabrics reminiscent of exotic draperies of the great romantic of paintings by Eugene Delacroix, an idol for Cézanne, create the backdrop for a carelessly thrown, mottled white cloth and porcelain vase. The attention of the viewer is first attracted to this dazzling, complexly designed spot, so that, enjoying the masterful transfer of the fabric, then concentrate on the bright fruits, as if glowing on a white background. It is white color that skillfully organizes the entire composition. He does not allow the eye to get lost in the festive bloom and wander around the canvas, introducing rigor in the coloristic decision and “collecting” the composition to the center.

With the help of color, the unity of the composition is achieved in Still Life with Eggplant. Thanks to the cold blue-lilac range, the canvas looks surprisingly seamless, while having a bright contrast in the form of orange-red apples. The overall tonality of the work smooths out, as if a random arrangement of objects in a still life. If it weren’t for the color, the ceramic vases, the plate and the bottle too close to each other, they would have looked like an absurd heap of random things.

One of the evidences of internal depression for artists can be served as Still Life with Skulls (1898-1900, private collection). Similar works appeared in the world art by the Dutch and belonged to the works of “vanitas” (“vanity of vanities”), symbolizing the transience of everything earthly. Folded mortal remains are given close-up and occupy most of the surface of the canvas. The absence of other objects in the picture and empty eye sockets, capturing the viewer’s eyes, give rise to blasphemous associations with the portrait, and not with still life.

Although Cezanne was the main heir to his father, his favorite estate in Aix was sold by his relatives without his knowledge. Also, the personal belongings of Cezanne, the elder, and even the furniture that the artist remembered from childhood, were destroyed.

Frustrated by the loss of his native home, the painter decides to acquire a manor with the grim name Black Castle. Despite the fact that this intention never came true, Cezanne devotes several of his landscapes to this place - “Forest at the Rocky Caves above the Black Castle” (1900-1904, National Gallery, London), as well as “Mill on the River” )1900-1906, Marlborough Art Gallery, London). In them, the artist, as before, decomposes all forms into component parts, but goes further - in general, the style of the works is closer not to post-impressionism, but already to abstraction.

Mount Victoria has become a favorite destination for Paul Cezanne to create his landscapes. He admired her magnificent beauty in his youth. In the late period of creativity, the master repeatedly painted views of this mountain, conveying its beauty in different atmospheric conditions and with different lighting.

At the end of his life, Cezanne conceived a large-format multi-figure composition of naked bathers in the bosom of nature. The artist has long dreamed of writing this canvas and there are several of its options created at different times. Due to natural timidity and lack of funds, Cezanne never used the services of models. Therefore, to create his own composition of several naked female bodies, he even asked one of his friend to get photographs of the female nude. Perhaps this explains some angularity of all the figures created by the artist without relying on nature.

The painter worked a lot and hard on the painting “Big Bathers” (circa 1906, the Art Museum, Philadelphia), carefully considering the layout of the nudes in space, meticulously reconciling the rhythm of body lines and outstretched arms, which, together with inclined tree trunks, form a harmonious semicircle. The work was to become a masterpiece, a kind of apogee of Cezanne’s creativity. The artist hoped to find himself through the harmony of the "roundness of the female chest and shoulders of the hills." Unfortunately, we will never know what kind of artist the artist would like to see in the end, since death interrupted his work.

World fame coming too late

Paul Cezanne was a loner, he followed his unbeaten path, almost misunderstood and ridiculed by too many. The artist did not want a simple reproduction of nature, he sought to know its inner essence and convey this fundamental structure on the plane of the canvas. The master’s work anticipated the art of cubism and abstraction, depicting reality refracted by the consciousness of a particular person. Cezanne discovered the world "new art", completely constructed in his mind, and therefore deeply original and individual.

Only at the end of life, recognition gradually began to come to the artist. In the late 1880s, a Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard became interested in the work of Cezanne. At first he studied the work of the master, looked closely at them, was interested in the opinions of other artists. After much deliberation, Vollard decides to track down Cezanne to organize his first solo exhibition.

The exhibition, which opened in 1895, covered all periods of the painter’s work, showing the evolution of his creative vision and revealing to everyone the unknown Cezanne. Those who came to support the artist Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro were amazed. Monet and Degas immediately bought several works of an old friend, and the Parisian public was already ready to accept the art of Cezanne.

After the first exhibition, the second followed. Vollard, although inexpensively, but stably bought the artist’s work. Two of his paintings were acquired by the National Gallery of Berlin. But, only in 1900, the painter finally won recognition at home, in Aix, putting an end to bullying and ridicule.

Gradually, thanks to his participation in the Paris International Exhibition, and other events dedicated to art, Cezanne became famous throughout the world, the name of the artist turned into a legend. However, unfortunately, this well-deserved recognition came to the painter very late. October 22, 1906 Paul Cezanne died. Only after the death of the artist, his paintings truly found their audience.