In the fall of 1906, Paul Cézanne went out to paint near Aix-en-Provence. He returned to the city after working in the rain, but his health was already shaky. On October 22, the French artist died in his hometown at the age of 67. The Guardian attributed his death to pneumonia, which he developed after falling ill while working outdoors.
Cézanne was born on January 19, 1839 in Aix-en-Provence. His father, Louis-Auguste, was a banker and expected his son to take a secure path in life. Young Paul began studying law, but in 1861 he abandoned his studies and went to Paris, where he chose painting. There he became close to Camille Pissarro, and his friendship with the future writer Émile Zola dates back to his early years.
Working against Doubts
His path to recognition was slow. Cézanne had difficulty fitting into the official artistic life of Paris, and his attempts to be accepted by the Salon in the 1860s were unsuccessful. Nevertheless, he continued to work between the capital and Provence, gradually building his own way of seeing.
“But I must work. Art is, above all, a theory developed and applied through contact with nature“, Cézanne wrote in a letter. For him, a painting is not simply a copy of the visible. He dismantles the landscape into colors, planes, and volumes, until objects begin to appear both stable and changeable.
The Mountain, the Apples, and the Card Players
Among his constant motifs is the Sainte-Victoire Mountain near Aix-en-Provence, to which he returns again and again. The landscape allows him to explore space and light without abandoning the clear construction of forms. The same approach is evident in the still lifes with apples, in the series of bathers, and in the paintings “The Card Players“.
His first solo exhibition was organized in 1895 by the gallerist Ambroise Vollard. At that time, Cézanne was already 56 years old, but widespread recognition came only towards the end of his life. The artist, who remained away from the art centers for a long time, gradually became an important figure for the next generation.
The bridge to modern art
Cézanne's influence was felt most strongly at the beginning of the 20th century. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque adopted his idea that forms could be represented through multiple perspectives and juxtaposed colored surfaces. This approach became one of the prerequisites for the development of Cubism.
Therefore, Paul Cézanne's death on October 22, 1906 did not end a closed artistic history. It came at a time when his painting was beginning to change the way artists understood space, objects, and the visible world.
Sources: theguardian.com