Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne (US /seɪˈzæn/ or UK /sᵻˈzæn/; French: [pɔl sezan]; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 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's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects.

Cézanne is said to have formed the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. Both Matisse and Picasso are said to have remarked that Cézanne "is the father of us all."

Life and work

Early years and family

The Cézannes lived in the town of Cesana Torinese, now in West Piedmont, Italy, and the surname is probably of Italian origin. Paul Cézanne was born on 19 January 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, in Provence in the South of France. On 22 February, he was baptized in the Église de la Madeleine, with his grandmother and uncle Louis as godparents. and became a devout Catholic later in life. His father, Louis-Auguste Cézanne (1798–1886), was the co-founder of a banking firm that prospered throughout the artist's life, affording him financial security that was unavailable to most of his contemporaries and eventually resulting in a large inheritance.

Modern art

Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation. Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or postmodern art.

Modern art begins with the heritage of painters like Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec all of whom were essential for the development of modern art. At the beginning of the 20th century Henri Matisse and several other young artists including the pre-cubists Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Jean Metzinger and Maurice de Vlaminck revolutionized the Paris art world with "wild", multi-colored, expressive landscapes and figure paintings that the critics called Fauvism. Henri Matisse's two versions of The Dance signified a key point in his career and in the development of modern painting. It reflected Matisse's incipient fascination with primitive art: the intense warm color of the figures against the cool blue-green background and the rhythmical succession of the dancing nudes convey the feelings of emotional liberation and hedonism.

Surname

A surname or family name is a name added to a given name. In many cases, a surname is a family name and many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name". In the western hemisphere, it is commonly synonymous with last name because it is usually placed at the end of a person's given name.

In most Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries, two or more last names (or surnames) may be used. In China, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Madagascar, Taiwan, Vietnam, and parts of India, the family name is placed before a person's given name.

The style of having both a family name (surname) and a given name (forename) is far from universal. In many countries, it is common for ordinary people to have only one name or mononym.

The concept of a "surname" is a relatively recent historical development, evolving from a medieval naming practice called a "byname". Based on an individual's occupation or area of residence, a byname would be used in situations where more than one person had the same name.

Paul

Paul may refer to:

People

Christianity

Roman and Byzantine empire

Royals

Other people

Ambroise Vollard

Ambroise Vollard (3 July 1866 – 21 July 1939) is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century. He is credited with providing exposure and emotional support to numerous notable and unknown artists, including Paul Cézanne,Aristide Maillol, Renoir, Louis Valtat, Pablo Picasso,André Derain, Georges Rouault, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. He is also well known as an avid art collector and publisher.

Biography

Born in Saint-Denis, Réunion, he was raised in the French Indian Ocean colony. After his matura (final exams) in La Réunion, he went to study jurisprudence in France from 1895, for a while in Montpellier, then at the École de droit in Paris, where he received his degree in 1888.

During his studies, Vollard converted himself into an "amateur-merchant" by becoming a clerk for an art dealer, and in 1893 established his own art gallery, at Rue Laffitte, then the center of the Parisian market for contemporary art. There Vollard mounted his first major exhibitions, buying almost the entire output of Cézanne, some 150 canvases to create his first exhibition in 1895. This was followed by exhibitions of Manet, Gauguin and Van Gogh (4 – 30 June 1895); for Gabriel Mourey, French correspondent of The Studio in Paris, this was simply a matter of "Scylla and Charybdis". These were then was followed by a second Cézanne exhibition (1898), the first Picasso exhibition (1901) and Matisse (1904).