Paul Cézanne was a French Post-Impressionist painter whose work introduced new modes of representation, influenced avant-garde artistic movements of the early 20th century and formed the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and early 20th-century Cubism.
Paintings by Paul Cézanne
The Bathers (Cézanne) (1906)
The Bathers (French: Les Grandes Baigneuses) is an oil painting by French artist Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) first exhibited in 1906. The painting, which is exhibited in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is the largest of a series of Bather paintings by Cézanne; the others are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, National Gallery, London, the Barnes Foundation, Pennsylvania, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Occasionally referred to as the Big Bathers or Large Bathers to distinguish it from the smaller works, the painting is considered one of the masterpieces of modern art, and is often considered Cézanne's finest work. The painting was featured in the 1980 BBC Two series 100 Great Paintings.
Cézanne worked on the painting for seven years, and it remained unfinished at the time of his death in 1906.
The Card Players (1893)
The Card Players is a series of oil paintings by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. Painted during Cézanne's final period in the early 1890s, there are five paintings in the series. The versions vary in size, the number of players, and the setting in which the game takes place. Cézanne also completed numerous drawings and studies in preparation for The Card Players series.
One version of The Card Players was sold in 2011 to the Royal Family of Qatar for a price estimated at $250 million ($357.8 million today), signifying a new mark for highest ever price for a painting, not surpassed until November 2017.
Mont Sainte-Victoire (Cézanne) (1902)
Mont Sainte-Victoire is a series of oil paintings by French artist Paul Cézanne, depicting the French mountain Montagne Sainte-Victoire in Provence.
Montagne Sainte-Victoire is a mountain in southern France, overlooking Aix-en-Provence. It became the subject of a number of Cézanne's paintings, in total numbering about eighty paintings and watercolors.
Pierrot and Harlequin (1888)
Pierrot and Harlequin or Mardi Gras is an 1888–1890 oil on canvas painting by Paul Cézanne, now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. As the title suggests, it shows the commedia dell'arte characters Pierrot and Harlequin.
It was in Victor Chocquet's collection from 1890 to 1899 before being bought by Paul Durand-Ruel, who kept it until 1904, when it was bought by Sergei Shchukin. It was seized by the Soviet state with the rest of Shchukin's collection upon the October Revolution and assigned in 1918 to the 2nd Museum of Modern Eastern Painting, which merged with the 2nd Museum of Modern Eastern Painting in 1924 to form the State Museum of Modern Western Art, where the work remained until that museum closed in 1948, then it moved to its present residence in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.
The Basket of Apples (1893)
The Basket of Apples (French: Le panier de pommes) is a still-life oil painting by French artist Paul Cézanne, which he created c. 1893. The painting rejected naturalistic representation in favor of distorting objects to create multiple perspectives. This approach eventually influenced other art movements, including Fauvism and Cubism. It belongs to the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Since the Neoclassical era, the subject of still life had been largely dismissed by artists as a trivial subject. It had not been considered to be of the same importance as religious and historical paintings or even landscapes and portraiture. The exception to this was a brief period in 17th-century Northern European art, particularly in the Netherlands, although this had little impact. This neglect of still life in art made it an attractive subject for Cézanne, who considered the subject to be a blank slate upon which he could experiment. Due to the lack of conventions in the depiction of the subject, Cézanne was given the freedom to create meaning within this largely untouched area. With his paintings of still life, Cézanne effectively reinvented and reinvigorated the subject, which then had great influence on artists of the 20th century, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.
The Boy in the Red Vest (1889)
The Boy in the Red Vest (Le Garçon au gilet rouge), also known as The Boy in the Red Waistcoat, is an oil painting (Venturi 681) by Paul Cézanne, painted in 1888–1890. It is a fine example of Cézanne's skilled, nuanced, and innovative mature work after 1880.
Cézanne painted four oil portraits of this Italian boy in the red vest (in British English, a waistcoat), all in different poses, which allowed him to study the relationship between the figure and space. The most famous of the four, and the one commonly referred to by this title, is the one which depicts the boy in a melancholic seated pose with his elbow on a table and his head cradled in his hand. It is currently held in Zürich, Switzerland. The other three portraits, of different poses, are in museums in the US.
Lady in Blue (Cézanne) (1904)
Lady in Blue is an oil on canvas painting by Paul Cézanne, executed c. 1900, now in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
One of Cézanne's last portraits of a woman, it shows the painter's governess Madame Brémond. Its tones, shapes and colours prefigure Fauvism and Cubism.
The Overture to Tannhäuser (1869)
The Overture to Tannhäuser is an 1869 oil-on-canvas painting by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne, now in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. It came from the Moscow collection of Ivan Morozov. The painting shows two women, usually identified as Cézanne's sisters but possibly the daughters of his uncle Dominique Aubert, at the Cézanne family home near Aix-en-Provence. Its title refers to the work played by the pianist on the left, the overture to Wagner's Tannhäuser.
Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier (1893)
Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier (English: Curtain, Pitcher, and a Fruit Bowl or Curtain, Jug and Fruit Bowl) is an oil on canvas painting created c. 1893 to 1894 by French artist Paul Cézanne. It is a formal still life composition, displaying Cézanne's exploration of form, balance, and symmetry in objects. On 10 May 1999, the painting was sold at Sotheby's auction for $60.5 million, making it the most expensive still life painting ever sold at an auction.
Cézanne explored various genres throughout his artistic career, including landscapes and portraiture, but repeatedly returned to the subject of still life. It was a genre that historically had been disregarded in art as unimaginative, yet Cézanne challenged the establishment by focusing on everyday objects. He was particularly drawn to fruit, which he used to explore the correspondence between objects and the harmony and balance of composition. Although his objects appear to have been placed randomly, the images were carefully constructed to experiment with perspective.
Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from Bellevue (1892)
Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from Bellevue is a landscape painting dating from around 1886, by the French artist Paul Cézanne. The subject of the painting is the Montagne Sainte-Victoire in Provence in southern France. Cézanne spent a lot of time in Aix-en-Provence at the time, and developed a special relationship with the landscape. This particular mountain, that stood out in the surrounding landscape, he could see from his house, and he painted it in on numerous occasions.
Only half a year after the opening of the Aix–Marseille railway line on October 15, 1877, Cézanne wrote to his friend Émile Zola on April 14, 1878, praising Mont Sainte-Victoire—seen from the train as it crossed the Arc River Valley bridge—as a “beau motif” (“beautiful motif”). Around this time, at the age of thirty-nine, Cézanne began, for the first time, a series of paintings devoted to Mont Sainte-Victoire in his native Aix-en-Provence. It is therefore highly probable that this celebrated series was inspired by the scenery viewed from the window of a moving train.
The Hanged Man's House (1874)
The Hanged Man's House (in French: La Maison du pendu, Auvers-sur-Oise) is an 1873 oil-on-canvas painting by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. The painting is exhibited at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
The Hanged Man's House was presented at the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874 and was the first painting that Cézanne sold to a collector. The village depicted in the painting is Auvers-sur-Oise, 27 km north of Paris.
House in Provence (1885)
House in Provence (French title: Maison devant la Sainte-Victoire près de Gardanne) is an oil painting by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. Created between 1886 and 1890, as of 2012 it is part of the permanent collection in the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
With muted tones and soft colors, Cézanne painted a home, accented by the gray-blue mountains in the background, the soft greens of the rolling hills, and the brown tones of the fields. Cézanne's dynamic style is best observed closely in this painting; the brushstrokes intersect in dynamic way, creating a patchwork. The brushstrokes create lively movement within the hard lines that border the house and the mountain.