Cézanne, Paul (1839-1906), French painter, often called the father of modern art. Cézanne had a profound effect on 20th-century art. He greatly influenced both French artist Henri Matisse and Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. However, Cézanne was largely ignored during most of his life, and he worked in isolation. He was alienated from his family, had few friends, and rarely exhibited his work.

Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence and studied in Paris. Many of his early works were painted in dark tones applied with heavy, fluid pigment, suggesting a moody, romantic expressionism. He gradually became committed to painting the world he observed without concern for themes or styles. He was greatly influenced by French painter Camille Pissarro, an older, unrecognized artist who encouraged Cézanne and introduced him to a new impressionist technique for rendering outdoor light. Under Pissarro's guidance Cézanne shifted from dark tones to bright hues and concentrated on farmland and village scenes.

Between 1852 and 1859 Paul Cézanne studied at the Collège Bourbon and it was there that he formed a friendship with Emile Zola, with whom he shared an interest in literature. In 1856 Cézanne began to attend the evening drawing courses of Joseph-Marc Gibert at the Aix Museum. From 1859 to 1861 he studied law at Aix, entered his father’s bank. By April 1861 his father had finally yielded to Cézanne’s desire to make a career in art and allowed him to go to Paris to study at the Académie Suisse. In Paris Cézanne frequented the Louvre, met Pissarro and Guillaumin and, later on, Monet, Sisley, Bazille and Renoir. In September of the same year he was refused admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and went back to Aix, to the great relief of his father, who offered him a position in his bank. But in November 1862 Paul Cézanne went back to Paris and took up painting again.

Cézanne exhibited with other impressionists in Paris, but his works received harsh critical commentary. He drifted away from his Parisian contacts and became quite isolated. During his so called “dark” or “romantic” period (1862-70) Paul Cézanne often visited Paris; he met with Edouard Manet and the future Impressionists, and tried to be accepted at the Salon. The Franco-Prussian War drove him to L’Estaque near Marseilles. Paul Cézanne’s “Impressionist” period (1873-79) is connected with his staying at Pontoise and Auvers-sur-Oise in 1872, 1873, 1874, 1877 and 1881; he worked with Pissarro and exhibited with the Impressionists in 1874 and in 1877. The canvases produced at L’Estaque (1880-83) and at Gardanne (1885-88) are usually referred to Paul Cézanne’s “constructive” period. In 1886 after his father’s death, Cézanne married Hortense Fiquet, with whom he had a secret liaison since 1870. During the 1880s and 1890s he gradually simplified his paint application and defined volumetric forms with juxtaposed strokes of pure color. Critics eventually argued that Cézanne had discovered a means of rendering both nature's light and form with a single application of color. He seemed to reintroduce a formal structure that the impressionists had abandoned, without sacrificing brilliant illumination.

In 1887, after a long break, Cézanne participated in the exhibition of Les XX at Brussels. Towards the beginning of Paul Cézanne’s “synthetic” period (1890-1906) the younger generations of artists started to take an interest in him. His first one-man show was held in the Vollard Gallery in 1895. During these years the artist seldom visited Paris – his longest stays there took place in 1895, 1899 and 1904 – and produced many versions of canvases depicting Mount Sainte-Victoire, smokers, card-players and bathers, and painted still lifes and portraits. By 1901 Cézanne had become recognized. He often met with young artists who admired his work – Denis, Bonnard and Vuillard. In 1901 Denis painted Hommage à Cézanne. The future Fauvist Charles Camoin sought his advice, and in 1904 he was visited by Emile Bernard, an artist of the Pont-Aven school, with whom Cézanne corresponded extensively, expounding his views on art.

In 1904 his paintings were shown for the first time at the Autumn Salon in Paris; and a year after his death, in 1907, a retrospective exhibition of his works was held there.

Cézanne left most of his works unfinished and destroyed many others. For many years he was known only to his old impressionist colleagues and to a few younger postimpressionist artists, including Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and French painter Paul Gauguin. By 1904, however, Cézanne was featured in a major exhibition, and he attained the status of a legendary figure. During his last years many younger artists traveled to Aix to observe him at work. Both his style and theory remained mysterious and cryptic, but his color intensity and compositional organization revealed that he had synthesized the basic expressive and representational elements of painting in a highly original manner.