Paul Cezanne
Paul Cezanne
Paul Cézannewas a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth19 January 1839
CityAix-en-Provence, France
CountryFrance
Paul Cezanne quotes about
Perhaps I was born too early. I was more the painter of your generation than of mine.
The approbation of others is a stimulus of which one must sometimes be wary. The feeling of one's own strength makes one modest.
The strong experience of nature... is the necessary basis for all conception of art on which rests the grandeur and beauty of all future work.
I am progressing very slowly, for nature reveals herself to me in very complex forms; and the progress needed is incessant.
I'd like to combine melancholy and sunshine... There's a sadness in Provence which no one has expressed... I'd like to put reason in the grass and tears in the sky, like Poussin...
The contour eludes me.
I am beginning to consider myself stronger than all those around me, and you know that the good opinion I have of myself has only been reached after mature consideration.
All my compatriots are asses compared to me.
I cannot attain the intensity that is unfolded before my senses. I have not the magnificent richness of colouring that animates nature.
I should have wished to possess the intellectual equilibrium that characterizes you and permits you to achieve without fail the desired end... Chance has not favoured me with an equal self-assurance, it is the only regret I have about things of this earth.
Nature is the best instructor.
Time and reflection... modify, little by little, our vision, and at last comprehension comes to us.
Under this fine rain I breathe in the innocence of the world. I feel coloured by the nuances of infinity. At this moment I am one with my picture. We are an iridescent chaos...
My nervous system is very much weakened - nothing but painting in oil can keep me going.