Paul Cézanne: Seeing Through Appearances

Paul Cézanne - The House with the Cracked Walls - 1892–94 - Oil on canvas - 31 1/2 x 25 1/4 in. (80 x 64.1 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art (click photo for larger image)After his father’s death in 1886, Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) became financially independent. He had married Marie-Hortense six months earlier, and, after a year in Paris in 1888, she and their son moved there permanently. Cézanne himself then settled in Aix-de Provence where he remained, except for a few visits to the capital, to Fontainebleau, to Jura in Switzerland, and to the home of Claude Monet in Giverny. In 1895, the art dealer Ambroise Vollard set up the first one-man exhibition of Cézanne’s work (more than 100 canvases). Nevertheless, although young artists and some art lovers were beginning to show enthusiasm for his painting, the public still remained unreceptive.

As the 19th century came to a close, Cézanne’s art was increasing in depth, in concentrated richness of color, and in skill of composition. From 1890 to 1905, he produced one masterpiece after another—each representing his new vision. He was obsessed with his work, which was time-consuming, since he painted slowly. Cézanne often chose abandoned sites near his studio outside Aix as his subjects, but he depicted the house featured here, with its sinister crevice, only once. The artist remained committed to seeing through appearances to the logic of underlying formal structure, throughout his lifetime.

Maurice Denis - Homage à Cézanne - 1900 - Oil on canvas - 1.8 x 2.4 m - Musée d’Orsay, Paris (click photo for larger image)By the turn of the century Cézanne’s fame had finally begun to spread. Because he was rarely seen by anyone, he also became something of a legendary figure. He exhibited at the widely attended annual Salon des Indépendants in 1899 and at the Universal Exposition held in Paris in 1900. His works were, at long last, sought after by galleries. The Caillebotte collection opened at the Luxembourg Gallery in Paris with two Cézannes. The National Gallery in Berlin purchased a landscape as early as 1900. Young artists esteemed Cézanne; in 1901, the young Symbolist painter Maurice Denis (1870-1943) painted Homage à Cézanne, a picture of the artist (Cézanne) admiring one of his still lifes.