Great Artists: Paul Cézanne
A painter of subtle landscapes who influenced a generation
It is a widespread assumption in art history that to understand the rise of modern art, you need to understand the art of Paul Cézanne.
Because of his influence on the generation of artists that followed him, especially Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, certain phrases have become connected with Cézanne: a bridge between Impressionism and Modernism; the forefather of Cubism; a painter of planes and flat areas of colour; interested in painting the natural world in terms of cylinders, spheres and cones. It is as if Cézanne attempted a new way of perceiving the world, and in the deed of turning vision into paint, unlocked a new method of making art.
To make such grand claims can predispose a viewer to expect extraordinary things of Cézanne’s art. One of the surprises, then, is how sober his works first appear. Landscapes and still-lives painted in restrained tones of cool-blue, light-greens and pale-oranges give the impression of a cerebral painter, one who hardly accords with the notion of a revolutionary.
So what was it that made Cézanne so special and highly revered?
