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Cezanne was the son of a wealthy banker who opposed his desire to be an artist. ("Think of the future, for one dies with genius but eats with money.")

At first the son gave in to his father and attended law school. But he devoted himself to painting instead of his studies, and his father finally agreed to support him in Paris.

Cezanne's paintings were not received well by the critics, who called him a "madman." He used murky and sour colors and painted with violent, impulsive strokes, going after the canvas like a dog pawing for a bone in the mud.

Cezanne himself referred to painting as a "dog's profession." Still, he enjoyed art and said he tickled himself when he painted.

He eventually moved from Paris (age 33) to join the older Camille Pissarro in the country. Pissarro, one of the Impressionists, provided the fatherly encouragement which had been lacking for Cezanne. Cezanne learned to observe nature as worked directly out of doors. He learned to paint feelings of love and joy instead of wrath and frustration.

At about the same time, Cezanne became a father. This provided additional stability to his life.

Cezanne admired the sense of order and solid structure of the paintings of Nicholas Poussin. He resolved to "redo Poussin from nature," focusing on the balanced, geometrical forms that underlie the changing, shimmering surface of reality.

Although his paintings were not cubist, he is known as the "father' of Cubism. Henri Matisse, leader of the Fauves, called Cezanne "the father of us all."

"Shape Cezanne" (some keys" are weaker than others)

Some information taken from "Cezanne and the Modern Vision." Scholastic. Art & Man 2:7 (April 1972)