\paperw4890 \margr0\margl0 \plain \f1 French painter. \par
The son of a banker, he studied at the CollΦge Bourbon in Aix-en-Provence, where he became friendly with the writer Em
ile Zola. Developing an interest in painting at the university, he went to Paris in 1861, where he attended the AcadΘmie Suisse and studied the works of Diego Velßzquez, Caravaggio, and the Venetian and Dutch painters at the Louvre. From 1862 to 1869 he
divided his time between Aix and Paris. In the French capital he saw the work of EugΦne Delacroix and Gustave Courbet, visited the Salon des RefusΘs in 1864, and took part in the meetings at the CafΘ Guerbois, where he met the painter Camille Pissarro, w
ho greatly influenced his work. His pictures were systematically rejected at the official Salons in Paris. In 1866, embittered by the attitude of the critics, he wrote a letter to the Superintendent of Fine Arts expressing his violent disagreement with o
fficial artistic culture. In 1872-73 he went to stay with Pissarro at Auvers-sur-Oise. Here his fellow artist persuaded him to abandon the literary and dramatic themes of his early period and devote himself to painting in the open air. CΘzanne began to s
tudy the landscape, dropping the dark tones of his previous works (\i The House of the Hanged Man\i0 , 1873, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). At the urging of Pissarro, the painter took part in the first exhibition of Impressionist painters in 1874.\par
In 1878 h
e went to LÆEstaque, a village at the end of the gulf of Marseilles, where he led an increasingly isolated existence and continued to send pictures to the Paris Salons, which unfailingly rejected them. In 1886, following the publication of ZolaÆs book
\i The Work\i0 , in which the character of the failed painter Claude Lautier was based on CΘzanne, he broke off relations with the writer.\par
Though still little known, his work influenced a number of post-Impressionist painters like Emile Bernard, Paul
SΘrusier, Maurice Denis, and the other artists of the Nabis group. Interest in his work began to emerge at the Salon des IndΘpendents in 1899. In 1904 the Salon dÆAutomne set aside an entire room for his work and in 1907 a major retrospective was staged
that put the final seal on his reputation.\par
The structural concreteness of Courbet and the coloring of Delacroix played an important role in the formation of CΘzanne, and just as great an influence was exercised by HonorΘ Daumier, who synthesized the
artistic qualities of the other two great masters. These influences are evident in his early paintings, such as the \i Autopsy\i0 (1867-69, Lecomte Collection); \i The Luncheon on the Grass\i0 (1870-71, private collection); and the \i Temptations of S
aint Anthony\i0 (ca. 1870, private collection). His portraits and still lifes were more restrained, but still had great vigor and intensity (\i Still Life with Teapot\i0 , 1869, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; \i Portrait of Antoine ValabrΦgue\i0 , ca. 18
71, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum; \i The Black Clock\i0 , 1869-70, Paris, private collection). In the works following his meeting with Pissarro, characterized by pale tones and a rigorous compositional structure, the distance between CΘzanne and the
Impressionist painters is already clear. CΘzanne claimed that he wanted to ôsolidifyö Impressionism, aiming at a synthesis of greatly simplified form and using color to construct forms by bringing out their volume. The formal and structural control of h
is representation of nature grew increasingly strict during the period in Aix from 1883 to 1887. In those years CΘzanne tenaciously pursued a mental order that could be expressed in firm pictorial forms modeled by color. It is no accident that the artist
returned incessantly to the same subjects û views of \i LÆEstaque\i0 (Chicago, Art Institute; Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), the \i Black Castle\i0 (Washington, National Gallery), and the \i Mont Sainte-Victoire\i0 (Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; Zurich, Kunsthaus).
His intention was to move away from the actual appearance of nature and represent it ôthrough the cylinder and the sphere.ö\par
In the beginning of 1890 he painted a series of magnificent still lifes (Paris, Basel, New York, Zurich), portraits of his wi
fe, and several versions of the \i Card Players\i0 (Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay; London, Courtauld Institute; New York, Metropolitan Museum). In the final period of his prolific career he painted many pictures of \i Bathers\i0 . Already tackled in 1885-87 (Bas
el, Kunstmuseum), the subject was now depicted on a much larger scale and with increasing abstraction.\par
CΘzanneÆs work was of fundamental importance to subsequent developments in modern painting. The Cubists considered him a precursor of their moveme
nt, but his influence extended far beyond Cubism. In fact he was the first to assign a new function to painting û that of constructing its own reality, based on laws independent of natural or emotional factors, a principle that lies behind all the develo
