Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) changed the face of art. He grew up in the south of France, in Aix-en-Provence, and ended up shaping both Impressionism and the next generation—Fauvism, Romanticism, Cubism, you name it. Cézanne wasn’t interested in just copying the world around him. He wanted to get at the core of things, using bold shapes and colors to show the real “simple beauty” of southern France.
Paul Cezanne Biography
Let’s rewind. Cezanne was born on January 19, 1839, and spent his early days exploring the countryside with his childhood friend, the writer Emile Zola. His father was a banker who hoped Paul would study something “respectable,” so Paul went along and enrolled in law school in Aix between 1859 and 1861. But he hated it. In 1861, he went to Paris to chase his true passion—painting.
Paul wasn’t alone. Zola cheered him on, even if his father wasn’t thrilled. At first, the family was upset, but Cézanne’s talent slowly won them over. When his father died, Paul inherited enough money that he no longer had to worry about supporting himself—he could focus completely on art.
Camille Pissarro,
Paris in the 1860s was a rough place for young artists. Paul met Camille Pissarro, who became a mentor and inspiration to the younger painter. But Cézanne faced a wall of rejection. For years, even the”rejects’ salon”—the Salon des Refusés—turned him away. He didn’t have a solo show until 1895.
Life wasn’t all sketchbooks and country walks, either. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out in 1870, Paul ran off with his mistress, Marie-Hortense Fiquet, to L’Estaque near Marseille to avoid the draft. He was nearly caught and labeled a deserter, but the war ended and he slipped away unscathed. During this time, Cézanne started shifting away from the dark, moody colors of his earlier work. The Mediterranean light and landscape woke something new in him.
He later said, “Until the war, my life was a mess. I wasted it. It was only at L’Estaque… that I really understood Pissarro… I was overcome by a passion for work.” And that’s exactly what happened. These were the years he began finding his voice, even if he was still prone to long bouts of self-doubt or depression. He had trouble fitting in with other artists, partly because of his difficult personality.
In 1886, Zola published a novel about a failed artist—a character Cézanne took personally. Their friendship ended, and for the rest of his life Cézanne became increasingly isolated. Still, even as he struggled emotionally, his reputation kept growing.
Cézanne eventually returned to Provence, where he spent his last decades. Here, freed from the cycle of Parisian rejection, he helped invent something new. He began to break down the world into planes and blocks of color. This way of painting set the stage for artists like Matisse and Picasso. Even as his approach became more abstract, he always turned back to nature as his starting point. He once wrote to his son, “As a painter I am beginning to see more clearly how to work from Nature… But I still can’t do justice to the intensity unfolding before my eyes.”
People remember Cézanne for his landscapes, but he also painted plenty of still lifes like “Still Life with Jar, Cup, and Apples” and portraits such as “Seated Peasant.” His series “The Card Players” captured the quiet strength of ordinary people and became legendary in art history.
Cézanne eventually married Marie-Hortense, and they had a son, Paul, in 1872—though their family life was complicated and often strained.
In his last 15 years, Cézanne battled diabetes, which almost certainly affected his mood. In October 1906, after catching a chill while painting outside, Cézanne died of pneumonia. He was 67.
His influence?
Enormous. Picasso famously called him “the father of us all.” Gauguin, Matisse, Duchamp, and Seurat all learned from him—or even rebelled against him. Cézanne paved the way for twentieth-century modernism, whether today’s art lovers realize it or not.
And if you wonder about his place in art market history—his painting “The Card Players” sold in 2011 for about $275 million to Qatar, making it one of the most expensive paintings ever. Not bad for a kid from Aix who couldn’t stand law school.