left on them: none of them could have worked in this manner, working as if Impressionism had not existed. All these artists faced the same sad fate – not one of them had a hope of ever entering the Salon and showing his work to the public. Impressionists had shown them a possible way: they created their own exhibitions, excluding from it those who were not with them. They were all very different: some did not have the necessary level of professionalism according to the jury’s rules; some shocked the public by being too bold in their style, too negligent or using colours which were too intense. A new exhibition opened in 1884 in Paris: Le Salon des artistes indépendants. The new Salon was a solution for everyone, because there was no jury and nobody was selecting works for the exhibition. Each painter could show whatever he wanted. The only condition was the number of works being shown, that number changed year after year. Georges Seurat, a Neo-Impressionist, whose unusual position made him undesirable for official exhibitions, took a very active part in organising the Salon des Indépendants. The Independents proclaimed what became the significant achievement of the Post-Impressionism era. According to the ‘Sunday’ painter Henri Rousseau, “Freedom to create must be given to initiators”.[4] Only two years after the last Impressionists exhibition, each painter had the possibility of showing his work to a wide audience.
Although it was often hard to discover a great talent among hundreds of pieces shown there, it was that Salon that gave the opportunity to such uneducated artists as Henri Rousseau to discover the art scene. School education ceased to be an essential quality for painters; Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin were also persistent, self-taught painters. Paul Cézanne – ‘the Impressionist’ —, who was not satisfied with Impressionists’ style, also chose his own special path; Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, even though he had received classical education, decided to choose a disapproved path. The work of all these painters was conceived in the era of Post-Impressionism and their lives, surprisingly, ended with the end of the century: Van Gogh died in 1890, Seurat – in 1891, Lautrec – in 1901, Gauguin – in 1903, Cézanne – in 1910, the Douanier Rousseau – in 1910.
Major Artists
14. Vincent van Gogh, Torso of a Woman (Plaster Statue), 1886.
Oil on canvas, 41 × 32.5 cm.
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)
15. Paul Cézanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1896–1898.
Oil on canvas, 78 × 99 cm.
The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
Paul Cézanne is considered an artist of the Post-Impressionism era, although he was a contemporary and friend of the Impressionists. Those contemporaries rightfully counted him among the Impressionists – Cézanne had exhibited with the Impressionists at the first 1874 exhibition, consequently, even the critic Leroy branded him, as he did the others, with this label. While working alongside Monet, Renoir and Pissarro, who were his friends all his life, Cézanne appraised their painting critically and followed his own, independent path. The Impressionists’ aspiration to copy nature objectively did not satisfy him. “One must think”, he said, ‘the eye is not enough, thinking is also necessary”.[5] Cézanne’s own system of painting was born in a dispute with Impressionism.
Paul Cézanne was born on January 19, 1839, in the city of Aix-en-Provence, where his father had founded a bank. At the Age of thirteen, his father sent him to boarding school at Bourbon College, where Paul studied for six years.
These years would have been rather unhappy had he not made friends at the College. A boy from a poor family, Émile Zola, the dynamic excellent student Jean-Baptiste Baille and the shy Paul Cézanne became an inseparable trio.
In Aix there was also a free drawing school, where Cézanne began to busy himself in the evenings from 1858 on. But, his father had linked his son’s future with the bank; however, Paul rebelled against it from the very beginning.
In 1859, Cézanne’s father bought an estate near Aix. Jas de Bouffan, which in the Provencal dialect means, “Home of the Winds” was situated on a small rise and had vineyards. At the time of Louis XIV, it had been the palace of the Provence governor. The living rooms of the ancient house were repaired and Paul installed a studio upstairs. He came to love this place and often painted the deserted park, the lane of old nut trees and the pool with the stone dolphins. In his letters, Zola persistently demonstrated his faith in his friend’s talent as an artist and invited his friend to Paris: “You must satisfy your father by studying law as assiduously as possible. But you must also work seriously on drawing.”[6] Paul’s father was obstinate, but, finally, he gave in, not having lost hope that his son would change his mind. Paul was able to abandon law and leave for Paris to take up painting. Finally, in 1861, Paul’s father himself took the future artist to Paris and promised to send him 250 francs every month.
In the novel L’Œuvre, Zola endows his hero with the young Cézanne’s appearance such as it was when he showed up in Paris: “A skinny boy, with knobbly joints, a stubborn spirit and a bearded face…”[7] This is how Cézanne also appears in the self-portraits of his Parisian youth: a beard, which covered the lower part of his face, forcefully sculpted cheekbones, and a serious, sharp stare.
Paris life did not spoil Cézanne. The joy of meeting with Zola, their first excursions together to the museums, and walks around the city and its suburbs gave way to the harsh regimen of work. Most of all, Cézanne went to the Swiss Academy on the Ile de la Cité.
16. Paul Cézanne, Girl at the Piano (The Ouverture to Tannhäuser), 1868.
Oil on canvas, 57.8 × 92.5 cm.
The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
17. Paul Cézanne, Achille Emperaire, c. 1868–1870.
Oil on canvas, 200 × 120 cm.
Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
But he missed Aix, its valleys and the Mont Sainte-Victoire, and the friends he left behind. Paris disappointed him. But chiefly, he was constantly dissatisfied with himself.
Cézanne found many friends at the Swiss Academy and friends they remained.
Pissarro immediately appreciated Cézanne’s boldness and ingenuity. Very likely, Armand Guillaumin, who later exhibited with the Impressionists, introduced them. Then Pissarro brought Cézanne to his friends – Monet, Renoir, Sisley and Bazille. In that same 1866, Cézanne became acquainted with Édouard Manet – through the mediation of mutual acquaintances, he obtained permission to visit Manet’s studio. After his visit, the master himself arrived at Guillaumin’s studio to see Paul’s still lives that were there. Cézanne always sensed the distance that separated him, a provincial painter just starting out, from the elegant, worldly Parisian, Manet. However, by virtue of his stubborn, cocky nature, he flaunted his own coarse provincialism.
Cézanne, like all artists, wanted to show his paintings, and this meant exhibiting at the Salon. He carried his canvases on a hand truck and impatiently awaited the jury’s decision, although he understood that his painting could not be accepted.
Cézanne
Paul Cézanne,
Émile Zola,
