being influenced by other painters, which he felt could paralyse artists, perhaps for an entire generation, he could not wholly escape CourbetΓÇÖs influence in the 1860s and 1870s. Matisse commented on this: ΓÇÿC┼╜zanne did not have to fear PoussinΓÇÖs influence because he was certain not to take on PoussinΓÇÖs forms, but when Courbet got through to him, as he did to most painters at that time, C┼╜zanneΓÇÖs technique reflected CourbetΓÇÖs too strongly, and C┼╜zanneΓÇÖs expression was limited by it.ΓÇÖ
C┼╜zanne also loved tenebrism, which he found echoed in the works of Jos┼╜ de Ribera and Francisco de ZurbarΓÇín. His first works were sombre and represented violent events such as murders, rapes, abductions and orgies, which contrasted strongly with the pastoral scenes inspired by his romantic vision of the world. These gloomy works were an outlet for his dreams and fantasies, an illustration of a world of unsatisfied passions that fed on literature. C┼╜zanne knew BaudelaireΓÇÖs poem ΓÇÿUne charogneΓÇÖ (ΓÇÿCarrionΓÇÖ) by heart, and he enjoyed depicting the sudden brutality that could arise between the delights of love and the horrors of death. Working in thick paint and using his palette knife to define shapes, he moulded his subjects with the flat of the blade and applied slabs of colour to indicate light. This rich, supple language was drawn from CourbetΓÇÖs
