Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) was a French Post-Impressionist painter whose patient, structured approach to form helped lay the foundations of modern art. Born in Aix-en-Provence, the son of a banker, he studied law at his father's wish before joining his school friend Émile Zola in Paris in 1861 to paint. He found a turning point in the 1870s while working outdoors alongside Camille Pissarro near Pontoise, adopting a lighter palette and patient observation of nature, and he exhibited with the Impressionists in 1874 and 1877. Returning to Provence, he painted still lifes of apples, The Card Players and dozens of views of Mont Sainte-Victoire, building forms from carefully placed strokes of color. He advised treating nature “by means of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone.” His first solo exhibition, in 1895, won the admiration of younger painters, and his work influenced Cubism and much of 20th-century painting.
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Pioneers of Modern Art and Architecture
From the 1870s onward, artists broke with academic tradition and opened the way to modern art. Monet's Impression, Sunrise gave Impressionism its name, and Cézanne, who exhibited with the Impressionists in 1874, rebuilt painting on structure and form. Edvard Munch turned art toward inner feeling with The Scream (1893), anticipating Expressionism. Frank Lloyd Wright carried this new spirit into architecture, designing buildings in harmony with nature, such as Fallingwater.
