Paul Cézanne
(1839 – 1906) was 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 can be said to form the
bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the
early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism.
The line attributed to both Matisse and Picasso that
Cézanne "is the father of us all" cannot
be easily dismissed.
Cézanne's work demonstrates
a mastery of design, colour, composition and draftsmanship.
His often repetitive, sensitive and exploratory brushstrokes
are highly characteristic and clearly recognisable. He used
planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form
complex fields, at once both a direct expression of the sensations
of the observing eye and an abstraction from observed nature.
The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects,
a searching gaze and a dogged struggle to deal with the complexity
of human visual perception.
