Paul Cézanne, a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter, was an important catalyst to the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavor to the modern and radically different world of art that emerged full bore in the 20th century. Cézanne successfully melded the structural impulse of Classicism with the color and emotion of Romanticism, inspiring the generations of artists who followed him to see and portray the world in a more abstract manner. Unusual for an artist, Cézanne rotated his attention relatively equally throughout his career among portrait painting, figure painting, still lifes, and landscapes. As with all things, Cézanne adopted his own approach to painting a still life. Many of his still lifes contain optical contradictions and distortions. The landscapes of Cézanne emphasize the structure and form of nature and its elements’ relationships in space, while de-emphasizing the more minor details of the scene. Not until the end of his life and career—just 10 years before his death in 1906—did Cézanne gain the recognition he enjoys today as a truly talented and cutting-edge man of the arts. When Cézanne was finally embraced by the public and the art critics, many younger artists traveled to Aix-en-Provence in the south of France to observe Cézanne at work. Cézanne’s advice to his young admirers was to engage in their own artistic endeavor and to find their unique style rather than to replicate his.
