Paul Cézanne
I chose Cezanne because Picasso (and/or possibly Matisse) said, “he is the father of us all.”
Paul Cézanne (1839 - 1906) was born in southern France. His father founded a successful banking firm which brought wealth to Cezanne’s childhood, and, more significantly, allowed him to paint without financial worries as an adult. In school, he befriended Émile Zola (later a famous author) and Baptistin Baille (later a professor of optics). Those three became “les trois inséparables.” Their bathing experiences were explored both in Cezanne’s art and Zola’s writing. Cezanne’s father made him go to law school, but Zola convinced him to move to Paris to study art. His father eventually made his peace with that.
Cézanne met Pisarro in Paris, and the two moved from student/mentor to colleagues as they worked en plein air around France. Cézanne’s works were rejected from the Salon of the académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but, with other Impressionists, he was able to exhibit at the Salon des Refusés. This was his Impressionist period. In 1886, he married his long-time mistress Hortense and moved to Provence. There, he developed diabetes, and by 1890 separated from his wife and son as well as from his old friend Zola, inventing Cubism along the way. He turned to Catholicism, and moved, first to live with his mother, then to an isolated studio at Aix. He died estranged from Hortense, from pneumonia caught while painting in a rainstorm.
Impressionism is the study of light as opposed to lines and contours. An impressionist painting may include ordinary as opposed to heroic subject matter, momentary and transient effects, motion, and unusual visual angles.
Cézanne, who experimented with Impressionism in his earlier years, became a post-Impressionist when he began to emphasize structure, distort forms, and use unnatural colors. He said he wanted to “make of Impressionism something sold and durable, like the art of the museums.”
As he experimented with structure and distortion of forms, he began to break up those forms altogether–this was the inspiration for Cubism.
Cézanne took these ideas very seriously indeed. It would take him hours to put down a single stroke; 100 days to paint a still life and 150 days to do a portrait. He was trying to make each brushstroke express “the air, the light, the object, the composition, the character, the outline, and the style.”
I’ve seen Cézanne’s paintings in every important city I’ve visited (except Tokyo!). He did several versions of “The Card Players” in 1892/3–in which you see him reworking the same theme in various ways. You can see how things got simplified and tweaked in these images. Many of Cezanne’s themes appear over and over again–especially bathers, forests, still life with apples, and portraits of himself and of his wife. Two images of bathers were done about 30 years apart, but are clearly done by the same artist.
Paul Cézanne (1839 - 1906) was born in southern France. His father founded a successful banking firm which brought wealth to Cezanne’s childhood, and, more significantly, allowed him to paint without financial worries as an adult. In school, he befriended Émile Zola (later a famous author) and Baptistin Baille (later a professor of optics). Those three became “les trois inséparables.” Their bathing experiences were explored both in Cezanne’s art and Zola’s writing. Cezanne’s father made him go to law school, but Zola convinced him to move to Paris to study art. His father eventually made his peace with that.
Cézanne met Pisarro in Paris, and the two moved from student/mentor to colleagues as they worked en plein air around France. Cézanne’s works were rejected from the Salon of the académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but, with other Impressionists, he was able to exhibit at the Salon des Refusés. This was his Impressionist period. In 1886, he married his long-time mistress Hortense and moved to Provence. There, he developed diabetes, and by 1890 separated from his wife and son as well as from his old friend Zola, inventing Cubism along the way. He turned to Catholicism, and moved, first to live with his mother, then to an isolated studio at Aix. He died estranged from Hortense, from pneumonia caught while painting in a rainstorm.
Impressionism is the study of light as opposed to lines and contours. An impressionist painting may include ordinary as opposed to heroic subject matter, momentary and transient effects, motion, and unusual visual angles.
Cézanne, who experimented with Impressionism in his earlier years, became a post-Impressionist when he began to emphasize structure, distort forms, and use unnatural colors. He said he wanted to “make of Impressionism something sold and durable, like the art of the museums.”
As he experimented with structure and distortion of forms, he began to break up those forms altogether–this was the inspiration for Cubism.
Cézanne took these ideas very seriously indeed. It would take him hours to put down a single stroke; 100 days to paint a still life and 150 days to do a portrait. He was trying to make each brushstroke express “the air, the light, the object, the composition, the character, the outline, and the style.”
I’ve seen Cézanne’s paintings in every important city I’ve visited (except Tokyo!). He did several versions of “The Card Players” in 1892/3–in which you see him reworking the same theme in various ways. You can see how things got simplified and tweaked in these images. Many of Cezanne’s themes appear over and over again–especially bathers, forests, still life with apples, and portraits of himself and of his wife. Two images of bathers were done about 30 years apart, but are clearly done by the same artist.
Mt Sainte-Victoire, View from Steinbruch Bibémus
Cézanne's landscapes evolved over his career. This one from 1897 was painted relatively late. Strong lines divide the stony features one from the other, but the trees are blurred and have indistinct outlines. Rather than depict each geological feature, he dabbed colors–green, purple, blue, yellow–on the basic orange of the cliffs.
As the eye moves around the painting, it's drawn to the erotic center, the dark areas in the middle. If you squint at it, it gets even worse, if that's the word I want. I think the power of the painting has something to do with its sensuality, the feeling that if you licked it all over, it would wiggle deliciously. And that's why it's a masterpiece.
As the eye moves around the painting, it's drawn to the erotic center, the dark areas in the middle. If you squint at it, it gets even worse, if that's the word I want. I think the power of the painting has something to do with its sensuality, the feeling that if you licked it all over, it would wiggle deliciously. And that's why it's a masterpiece.
Cézanne Lesson: Using Color
Lesson Title: Cézanne and Colors
Grade: K - 9 self-contained classroom
Key Vocabulary: Color wheel, complementary, primary, secondary
Visuals/Resources: A color wheel. Images of Cézanne's still lifes. Several still lifes with fruit, ginger pots, table linens, and dishes.
Connections to Prior Knowledge: Most kids have tried to mix colors with markers and paint, although most don't notice what happens unless they're asked to articulate it.
Content Objectives: 1. Create a six-color color wheel.
2. Observe the use of primary, secondary, and complementary colors in Cézanne's paintings
3. create a finished still life using complementary colors.
Meaningful Activities: 1. Warmup with shapes seen in the still life.
2. In Cézanne's later career, he used bright colors in his paintings. Mini-lesson
3. 15-minute stations: Still lifes with exemplars. Color mixing. Color wheel. Rainbow.
3. 30-minute masterwork session: paint a still life in art journal.
Supplies: Teacher-made exemplars, color wheel, still lifes.
Review/Assessment: Art journal
Language Objective: Use appropriate vocabulary when sharing journal.
Grade: K - 9 self-contained classroom
Key Vocabulary: Color wheel, complementary, primary, secondary
Visuals/Resources: A color wheel. Images of Cézanne's still lifes. Several still lifes with fruit, ginger pots, table linens, and dishes.
Connections to Prior Knowledge: Most kids have tried to mix colors with markers and paint, although most don't notice what happens unless they're asked to articulate it.
Content Objectives: 1. Create a six-color color wheel.
2. Observe the use of primary, secondary, and complementary colors in Cézanne's paintings
3. create a finished still life using complementary colors.
Meaningful Activities: 1. Warmup with shapes seen in the still life.
2. In Cézanne's later career, he used bright colors in his paintings. Mini-lesson
3. 15-minute stations: Still lifes with exemplars. Color mixing. Color wheel. Rainbow.
3. 30-minute masterwork session: paint a still life in art journal.
Supplies: Teacher-made exemplars, color wheel, still lifes.
Review/Assessment: Art journal
Language Objective: Use appropriate vocabulary when sharing journal.