Why is studying this artist who died 130 years ago important to me? Why should I learn about him? How is his life going to present any meaning to mine?

This is a good question that should be asked about every artist we study. Here is your answer. Artists present a different perspective on the world. They take that perspective and present it to the world through music, writing, dance, and the visual arts. Seeing through their eyes broadens your perspective. You will especially discover this when you travel to other countries where everything is completely different from language, to food, to cultural dynamics.

Paul Cezanne broke away from seeing life and images in a traditional framework or realism. He chose to explore color and form in such a manner that he challenged the flat 2 dimensional surface of just canvas and paint to reinterpreting color, its values, and highlights that recreates form itself. In other words, he shows us that color can change form. As you observe the pears and lemon and skull within the painting above you see this displayed. Each piece of fruit has a life of its own. Each is unique incisor and form. He played with perspective by bringing his objects and landscapes forward and at times he brings the background forward as it the foreground was receding into the background. He takes trees and buildings and tables and even a skull and builds them out of geometric shapes. Notice the background of the image on the right. By creating a dark background it pushes the objects forward toward you. Now look at the landscape on the right. The foreground becomes a stage for the background. It leads the eye into space to the sky. However the dark background builds a stage in the same way a theatre does. The fruit and skull become actors on a stage.

How do you think about yourself in light of how Cezanne paints? Do you take a hard look at yourself as you live your life taking time to observe the beauty around you as seen in these two paintings? If each one of those pears and the single lemon represented a virtue in you could you see it? At the same time we each have deficits or struggles within, such as represented by the skull. Within the landscape we see horizontal lines in the buildings and the distant mountains and yet there are also vertical lines that complement those horizontal lines. Do you see the tree leaves in the immediate foreground or did you miss them? There is a foreground, middle ground and background all coming together as one form of gravitas or importance of unity within seeing beauty. Just as this painting has three dynamics to it, a foreground, middleground, and background so do you have your own gravitas. Those three elements are found in each of us having a body, mind, and spirit (soul). Lastly, you are your greatest work of art. Remember, life is about choices, art is about making creative choices, just as Cezanne did in all his art.

—Daniel Bonnell

The studio of Paul Cezanne exists in a house he had designed and built for himself. It is a house in the country of Aix En Provence in Southern France. Cezanne lived in the village but walked to this studio every day. Below is his studio that is kept just as he left it when he died in 1906. Click on each icon to view what is shown in that area of his studio.

Below is a famous Cezanne still life painting. Can you figure out how to put the painting together?

Please answer the three simple questions below as evidence that you did the above reading.