Chrysanthemums, 1800

Paul Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence on January 19, 1839, the first child and only son to Louis-Auguste Cézanne, a prosperous hatter, and owner of the local bank. Cézanne received a classical education and in 1856-7 began classes at the Free Drawing School attached to the Musée d'Aix (now the Musée Granet). His father wanted him to study law and become a banker, so bowing to paternal pressure, he registered at the Aix law school in 1858. However after three years he dropped out and headed for Paris to pursue his interest in art, encouraged by his good friend Émile Zola. In Paris Cézanne discovered he was technically inferior to the other students at the Salon, and dejected, returned home after 5 months. Back home he tried banking for a while, hated it, and after bitter family quarrels his father finally gave him an allowance to pursue painting and in 1862 he went back to Paris.

Never really comfortable in the city, Cézanne moved back and forth between Paris and Aix for the next 10 years, trying to find his artistic voice. Though he met and mixed with artists such as Manet, Whistler, Degas and Renoir, he remained essentially an outsider.

Basket of Apples, 1890-4

By all accounts Cézanne had a difficult personality and did not make friends easily. A notable exception was Camille Pissarro who took Cézanne under his wing and became a lifelong friend and influence on his artistic development. His early work is characterized by mainly dark themes, bizarre and violent scenes of fantasy, rape and murder; in stark, somber colouring and heavy, thickly textured paintwork. In 1859 Cézanne's father bought Jas de Bouffan, a large farm on the outskirts of Aix, as a family estate and this locale figured prominently in many of Cézanne's earlier works.

In 1869 Cézanne met Marie-Hortense Fiquet, a model who he eventually married in 1886. In 1872 Hortense bore his only child, a son also named Paul, and at the instigation of Pissarro they moved to Auvers. Pissarro and Cézanne admired and respected each other's talent, had similar backgrounds and views on art and were extremely hard-working. They frequently painted together, mostly outdoors, learning and experimenting with each other's techniques.

The Museum of Modern Art hosted an interesting exhibition June - September 2005, Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne and Pissarro 1865–1885, a collection of "mirror" paintings by the two artists - an example can be seen below.
Cézanne Côte, Saint-Denis, Pontoise, 1877	Pissarro Côte, Saint-Denis, Pontoise, 1877
"Pioneering Modern Painting presents the work of Paul Cézanne and Camille Pissarro in the context of their artistic relationship. Features approximately eighty paintings and eight drawings executed by both artists as they worked side by side in Pontoise and Auvers in France’s Oise River Valley". Visit MoMA online exhibition

Under the influence of Pissarro, Cézanne began his "impressionist" phase. He now placed more emphasis on a close observation of nature and the rendering of light and atmospheric effects, producing works with a lighter palette and freer brushwork, which he exhibited in Paris at the impressionist exhibitions of 1874 and 1877.

In 1866 Emile Zola published his novel The Masterpiece (L'Oeuvre), a semi-autobiographical account of his relationship and friendship with Cézanne set amongst the artistic fraternity. In the book his thinly disguised and unflattering portrayal of Cézanne as a failed artist upset Cézanne so much that he broke off the friendhip. Later that same month Cézanne married Hortense, and in October his father died; his inheritance finally giving him financial independence. In 1895 the famous art dealer Ambroise Vollard organized Cézanne's first solo exhibition of about 150 paintings which Cézanne chose himself; and he finally began to receive critical recognition and acclaim. Further exhibitions at Vollard's gallery in 1904-06, established his reputation as an artist of brilliance and his impact on younger artists like Matisse and Picasso was recognized.

Trees in Park, Jas de Bouffan c 1887

By the mid 1880's Cézanne had developed full artistic maturity, adopting what he called his "constructive stroke" - a characteristic style in which paint was applied in even colours in regular, hatchet strokes, like a mosaic, meant to capture solid form rather than the fleeting effects of light and shade rendered by the impressionists. During the last decade of his life, Cézanne's paintings became more simplified, the objects in his landscapes reduced to cylinders, cones and spheres. Cézanne felt all nature could be reduced to these 3 basic shapes, thus anticipating cubist and abstract art.

In his striving for perfection he sometimes worked on the same picture for years, never satisfied with the results, leaving many unfinished, sometimes even destroying others. He seldom signed his works, meaning to retouch or rework them later. Those he did sign had his approval.

A significant event in Cézanne's last decade was the death of his mother in 1897, which led to the sale of the Jas de Bouffan in 1899. In 1902 he had a studio built in the outlying hills of Les Lauves. It is from here that Cézanne began his portrayals of Montagne Sainte-Victoire, a nearby landmark and one of his signal themes. Another major theme, throughout his whole life, was still lifes, of which he painted over 200 in his lifetime.

The Garden at Les Lauves, c 1906

"By the time of his death (in Aix on October 22, 1906) he had attained the status of a legendary figure, and his work had begun to be shown and seen all over Europe. During his last years many younger artists travelled to Aix to observe him at work and to receive any words of wisdom he might offer. Both his style and his theory remained mysterious and cryptic; he seemed to some a naive primitive, while to others he was a sophisticated master of technical procedure. The intensity of his colour, coupled with the apparent rigor of his compositional organization, signalled to most that, despite the artist's own frequent despair, he had synthesized the basic expressive and representational elements of painting in a highly original manner" (from MSN Encarta).

An online exhibition: Cézanne in Provence, at National Gallery of Art, Jan - May 2006