Artists inspire: Paul Cezanne - my stories about artists of the past, vol.5. Biography, paintings, stories:)

In my introduction I said that I graduated as an art critic. How a few years I worked at the museum in my city, but finally I became an artist myself. But I still have full head of interesting fakts and storys about great artists of past, which got me thinking: why not to share my knowledge here?:)

Today I continue my storys about famous impressionists and the hero of today post is Paul Cezanne.

Paul Cezanne was born on January 19, 1839 in France. In 1852, he enrolled at Bourbon College, was very talented in Latin and versification, and worked part-time. 

Cezanne was interested in music, played the trumpet in the city orchestra. Later he enrolled in the free drawing school of the city of Aix, and later moved with his mother to Paris. The artist's father wanted to become a lawyer ( it seems creepy how many future artists were seen by their parents as lawers. It was even with me too when I was at 8 grade:). His friend Emil Zola spoke about this:

-"The future banker turned out to be an artist and, I feel that his eagle wings grow, he wanted to leave the nest"

In Paris Cezanne had to live on 125 francs a month. This amount was barely enough for housing, food and painting courses. Pissarro was very arrogant and never listened to criticism. Here I again quote Zola, who spoke:

-"To prove anything to Cezanne is like persuading Notre-Dame to dance a quadrille"

The artist failed when trying to enter the School of Fine Arts, so his main means of learning was copying the paintings of old masters in the Louvre. Like it was with many impressionists, academic painting provokes his protest. Cezanne draws bacchanalia, orgies, abductions and murders. According to him, he wanted to "make the Academy blush with anger and despair." Official Salon repeatedly rejected paintings of the artist, but this only convinced him of his own rightness.

-"Good! Eternity still show them who was right!"

And it did.

We can say a few more words about Cezanne's many years of friendship with Emile Zola. He supported the artist financially, supported his work, although their views on life in many respects differed. Their friendship ended when Zola sent Cezanne to read his book called "Creativity." In the main character, a failed artist with a penchant for suicide, Cezanne recognized himself. The artist felt so offended that he permanently ceased communication with a childhood friend.

October 23, 1906 Cezanne died of pneumonia, which was the result of painting in the open air in the rain. The last years of his life the artist spent almost alone.

During his life Cezanne created 46 self portraits. Here I'll show a few of them to create general impression. Painting was the only thing that kept him alive, that saved him from loneliness. All his self-portraits look disassembled, as he probably been himself.

• "Bathers"

The picture was based on childhood memories of the artist, about his life in a village. I want to attract your attention to the cold shading on the bodys. Yep, only Cezanne could do it this way:) And to say a bit more - it's not the only bathers he created. There a lot of them:)

• "Large pine and red earth"  

Pay attention to the location of the smears in this picture. Yes, it's almost a mosaic!

I hope you enjoyed my short blog post:) If you did, please resteem, upvote and follow, it would be great to know that I'm not just talking to myself here:)

Thank you for watching!:)

Love, Inber