Paul Cézanne: Bathsheba 2

Public Domain Image: Bathsheba 2, oil painting on canvas painting by French artist and Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)

Paul Cézanne - The Bathers #4

PD Image: The Bathers #4 by Paul Cézanne, oil on canvas painting

French artist and Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) is credited for laying the foundations of the transition from the 19th century style of art to a radically different form. He experimented with different optical images an object can present to the viewer. Also he tried to view every object in geometrical shapes such as cylinders, spears, etc. His direct observations from nature were transferred to the canvas as bold, but small brush strokes using different lighting conditions and vibrant colors, often giving the impression of coarse, immature paintings. And, possibly as experimenting with such themes, he painted some themes repeatedly, but giving a fresh and energizing impression each time. For instance, his ‘bathers’ series of paintings are numerous, but they are never monotonous or boring, and each one of them gave a new meaning to his art.

Also Cezanne is credited as being a bridge between Impressionism and the early 20th century's Cubism, as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso would vouch for. Also, Cézanne's work and themes of geometric simplification and optical phenomena inspired emerging artists of the times such as Picasso, Juan Gris, Georges Braque and others making them experimenting with more complex and multiple views of the same subject, and even fracturing of form. And this artistic enquiry and experimentation contributed greatly to the evolution of modern art.

Paul Cezanne: The Large Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses)

PD Image: The Large Bathers (1898-1905), oil on canvas painting by French painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906); dimensions 210.5 cm x 250.8 cm (82 7/8 in x 98 3/4 in) located at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, United States.

The Large Bathers (Deutsch: Die großen Badenden, Français: Les Grandes Baigneuses) is often considered the masterpiece of Paul Cézanne. First exhibited in 1906, this painting is the largest of a series of paintings with the same title ‘The Bathers’ by Cézanne. The others are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the National Gallery, London.

This painting is generally referred to as ‘The Large Bathers’ to distinguish it from other paintings of Cezanne’s ‘Bathers’ series and it is considered one of the masterpieces of Modern Art. The painting was featured in ‘100 Great Paintings’ a television series created by Edwin Mullins for BBC Two in 1980.

Because of the technique employed in painting landscapes and still lives, The Large Bathers often compared to the works of Titian, Peter Paul Rubens, and Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.

French Artist Paul Cezanne

Photo of Paul Cézanne taken in 1861

French artist and Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) is credited with works that laid the foundations of transition from the 19th century concept of art to a radically different art form of the 20th century. Cezanne is also considered as the bridge between Impressionism and the early stages of Cubism.

Paul Cezanne's works symbolize mastery of design, colour, composition and draftsmanship, and a style dominated by repetitive, sensitive and exploratory brushstrokes. He used vibrant colors and brushstrokes that built up the perceptions for the observers’ eyes, from an abstraction of the observed nature, thereby exploring the complexity of human visual perception.

At the age of ten, Paul Cezanne entered the Saint Joseph school in Aix where he studied drawing under the Spanish monk Joseph Gibert. In 1852 Cézanne joined the College Bourbon (now College Mignet) where he became friends with Emile Zola and Baptistin Baille.

His early work is often concerned with figures and landscapes. Later, he became more interested in painting from direct observations. Throughout his life he struggled to develop an authentic observation of the seen world by the most accurate method of representing it in paint that he could find. For this, he structurally incorporated whatever he perceived into simple forms and colour planes.

Cezanne tried to simplify whatever he observed to their geometric elements such as cylinders, spheres, cones and other geometric forms. As a result, his painted observations of nature resulted in an exploration of binocular vision, which results in two slightly different simultaneous visual perceptions. Such visual representation coupled with Cézanne's desire to capture the truth of his own perception compelled him to render the outlines of forms so as to display the distinctly different views of both the left and right eyes. Thus Cezanne's work augments and transforms the earlier ideas of perspective, in particular single-point perspective.

Cezanne's paintings were shown in the first exhibition of the Salon des Refusés in 1863, which displayed works not accepted by the jury of the official Paris Salon. The Salon rejected Cézanne's paintings every year from 1864, and Cézanne continued to submit his works to the Salon until 1882, when, through the intervention of fellow artist Antoine Guillemet, Cézanne exhibited Portrait of Louis-Auguste Cézanne, Father of the Artist (l'Evénement). It was his first and last successful submission to the Salon.

Cezanne exhibited his works twice with the Impressionists -- at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 and the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877. Despite his increasing popularity and financial success, Cézanne chose to work in isolation. He concentrated on a few themes and was proficient in genres like still lives, portraits, landscapes and studies of bathers.

Image: Léda au cygne (1880-82), Paul Cezanne’s version of ‘Leda and the swan’, dimensions 59.8 cm x 75 cm, located at The Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania

One day Paul Cezanne was caught in a storm while working in the field. After working for two hours under a downpour he decided to go home but on the way he collapsed. He was taken home by a passing driver. The next day too he insisted on working, but later on he fainted. The model with whom he was working called for help and he was put to bed, and he died of pneumonia a few days later, on 22 October 1906. Paul Cezanne was buried at the old cemetery in his hometown of Aix-en-Provence.