9781422271742

MASTERS OF ART

Paul Cézanne was born in 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, France. He was born into a privileged family and was well educated at the Collège Bourbon in Aix. Cézanne’s father was a successful banker and was hopeful that his son would follow the same profession. However, Cézanne studied law, but after two years and lack of commitment to his studies, he went to Paris to study painting. The following years were difficult for Cézanne, who struggled with mental health issues. Between 1858 and 1872, Cézanne alternated between living in Paris and visiting Aix, a time when his creativity flourished. During this period he became associated with important artists of the Impressionism movement including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas, to name but a few. By the turn of the century, his fame had spread and his works were highly sought after by galleries. Cézanne died in 1906. He was buried in Aix-en-Provence.

THE ART OF CÉZANNE

A t times, when one reads art critics or historians of twentieth-century art, it may seem that the whole structure rests on a foundation called Cézanne. The first movements of the century, Fauvism and Cubism, were led, respectively, by Matisse and Picasso, and both, despite very different approaches to painting, claimed Paul Cézanne as their mentor and source of inspiration. It is certain that the qualities discerned in Cézanne’s work by almost all writers have been seminal to many of the varied directions that painting has taken in the last 100 years, not only in Europe but worldwide as art has become an international enterprise. That Cézanne is the epic icon from which so much of twentieth-century art derives its faith and inspiration is somewhat surprising when one examines his decidedly unheroic life in term of positive action or open revolution. Cézanne was never a leader as were many of the French painters—Ingres, Delacroix, Manet, or Monet in his own day, or Picasso, Matisse, or

Mondrian in the twentieth century. And yet, his preeminence is hardly disputed, and his influence persists. Cézanne’s reputation is all the more surprising when one recognizes that his art is both difficult and not as immediately attractive to the observer as, for instance, the works of Monet or Degas; neither do they offer the challenge and drama of Van Gogh or Gauguin. To add yet one more element of difficulty: he is what is often described as a “painter’s painter.” In other words, it is considered that many, if not most, of his painterly qualities can only be initially appreciated by fellow professionals; for the ordinary picture-lover, there often remains the underlying uncertainty of the real value of his work. He did not have the fluency of drawing or the easily absorbed subject matter of his contemporaries. Since his death, there has been a great deal of eulogistic writing, but there has also been caution and, in a few cases, dismissal. And then one looks at the sale values 7