Paul Cézanne As An Artist Of Post Impressionism

During the 19th century, a new movement was developed which chose to stimulate emotion rather than focus on reality. Artists such as Paul Cézanne were mainly recognized by the way of their thinking rather than their style. This movement is called Post Impressionism. Being influenced by Emile Zola and other artists including Courbet and Manet, Paul Cézanne became a very important founder of such movement and is considered as the father of Post Modernism. As time passed, artists such as Van Gogh and Seurat followed in his footsteps by seeing the world objectively as Cézanne was unsatisfied with the idea of impressionism. At that time the “Salon” was crucial for all artists to show their work in public, but Cézanne wanted to not just paint but construct his work. This meant that he used intrinsic qualities of colours and geometric shapes to identify his paintings. This resulted in his work being rejected. Due to this he stopped pursuing this exhibition and fled France, hoping to set up his studio elsewhere. Although Cézanne still painted in a sketchy manner, he painted the object rather than the moment. Cézanne’s work from previous decades of his life gave way to the development of modern art. Although he worked slowly and with patience, he turned his paintings into the structuring of a pictorial language that would have a major effect on every radical phase of the 20th century art.

A few of Cézanne’s fine works are the paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire where he depicts the same view but through different perspectives. In one we see the that Cézanne used the help of photographs in aim to grasp perceptual subtleties. In this painting one can identify immediately the outermost contour and in it one can see a series of lines and edges. By these lines connecting at the very top of mountain and the distinction between the outer contour and the ridge, Cézanne creates an effect which shows the receding of such mountain. In doing so Cézanne portraits the mountain as a complex pyramid rather than a simple triangle.

Cézanne once again paints the same scene but from a different viewpoint and through another style, a style he rather preferred since he enjoyed constructing paintings as previously said. At first sight, our eyes are attracted towards the mountain where it seems to have two peaks, one higher than the other. This contradicts his first painting, where in the Philadelphia canvas we see the mountain’s truncated apex rise slightly from left to right. Although, Cézanne appreciates topography and therefore uses colour to portray the mountain. To depict the peak Cézanne uses a range of colours varying from white, grey and light blue. This can be understood as the space above the mountain or even a cloud behind it and uses the blue brushstrokes to show the downwards slant. Cézanne also includes a bunch of houses which are constructed geometrically and painted with darker colours to show that they are the closest to him. After them, Cézanne fills the middle ground with fields portrayed as a patch of yellow and green. Cézanne objectively chooses such colours to extend the foreground’s colour scheme and also contrast with the colours uses to paint the background.