Cezanne

Paul Cezanne was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839. His school friend, Emile Zola, introduced him to Manet and Courbet, persuading him to move to Paris to study art and forfeit a career in law. With the financial support of his father, Cezanne was able to dedicate himself wholly to art from the age of 22, whereupon he was introduced to many of the leading Impressionists such as Pissarro, Monet and Renoir. Whilst his early work was without merit, in 1873 he produced The House of the Hanged Man and the skill employed in this piece brought him recognition at the First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874.

In 1877 Cezanne took part in a second Impressionist exhibition, although he never identified himself with this movement. His art sought to portray nature in a new light by cultivating landscapes through the artist’s feelings. This led him back to Provence from 1880, where he could focus his attention on the countryside in paintings such as Mont Ste Victoire and The Large Pine, in addition to the many portraits of his wife, Hortense.

The influential dealer, Ambroise Vollard, arranged 's first one-man exhibition in 1895 with the effect that he gained widespread recognition and before the end of the century became known as ‘Sage’ amongst the avant-garde.

His work’s dedication to structure and its ability to evoke numerous sensations in the viewer have led to such expressive depths as to remain influential throughout all subsequent art movements, particularly Cubism. His approach is objective and demonstrates dramatic force through an open detachment to the subject matter. In this way he has drawn inspiration from a variety of simple subjects, ranging from a mountain peak to a quarry, from trees to impassive objects on a table. With each painting he highlights a corresponding mood, and is thus able to adjust his technique between solid brush-strokes and fine watercolour to always remain sincere to the work in question.