Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter known for expressive color, energetic brushwork, and a highly visible paint surface.
Painter
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French Post-Impressionist painter known for still lifes, landscapes, and portraits built through measured brushstrokes and color.
Paul Cézanne quick facts
Review Paul Cézanne's career, Post-Impressionist painting, repeated subjects, and his use of oil and watercolor to build form through color.
| Full name | Paul Cézanne |
|---|---|
| Born | January 19, 1839 · Aix-en-Provence, France |
| Died | October 22, 1906 · Aix-en-Provence, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Movements | Post-Impressionism |
| Paint types | Oil paint · Watercolor · Gouache |
| Other media | — |
| Other materials | — |
| Painting surfaces | Canvas · Paper |
| Painting methods | Short, constructive brushstrokes and overlapping color planes; transparent watercolor washes and reserved white paper |
| Common subjects | Still lifes with fruit, portraits, bathers, landscapes, and Mont Sainte-Victoire |
| Notable works | The Card Players, The Large Bathers, and the Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings |
Sources: The Met: Paul Cézanne, MoMA: Paul Cézanne, Philadelphia Museum of Art: Cézanne, MoMA: Cézanne's materials, The Met: In the Oise Valley, and MoMA: watercolor Mont Sainte-Victoire.
Paint types used by Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne used Oil paint, Watercolor paint, Gouache paint; examples below link these media to named works and explain their role in image-making.
-
Oil paint
Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley (1882–85) uses oil on canvas to organize a familiar landscape into measured areas of color. In another Mont Sainte-Victoire (c. 1902–06), also oil on canvas, he enlarged the support while painting to extend the view across the foreground and to the right.
-
Watercolor paint
In Mont Sainte-Victoire (1902–06), a watercolor-and-pencil work on paper at MoMA, Cézanne described the mountain with translucent washes, drawn lines, and unpainted areas. These lighter passages depend on the paper showing through rather than on the thick oil layers of his canvases.
-
Gouache paint
The Met records In the Oise Valley (1878–80) as graphite, gouache, and watercolor. The opaque gouache contributes to this mixed-media landscape study, but should not be assumed to have been used in Cézanne's oil paintings or in every watercolor drawing.
Sources: The Met: Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct, The Met: later oil Mont Sainte-Victoire, MoMA: watercolor Mont Sainte-Victoire, and The Met: In the Oise Valley, watercolor and gouache.
Painting surfaces used by Paul Cézanne
Documented works by Paul Cézanne use Canvas, Paper, with examples below clarifying when a material is a painted ground, backing, or constructed element.
-
Canvas
Cézanne’s oil paintings, including works in The Met and MoMA collections, are documented on canvas. In views of Mont Sainte-Victoire he organized the landscape into measured areas of color, sometimes enlarging the support while working to extend the view. These finished paintings differ from his watercolor studies on paper.
-
Paper
Cézanne’s watercolor studies and drawings use paper. In his late Mont Sainte-Victoire watercolors, translucent washes, drawn lines, and unpainted areas let the sheet itself contribute to the mountain’s form; this is a different handling from the layered oil on his canvases.
Sources: The Met: Paul Cézanne, MoMA: Paul Cézanne, Philadelphia Museum of Art: Cézanne, MoMA: Cézanne's materials, The Met: In the Oise Valley.
Painters similar to Paul Cézanne
Cézanne's studies of landscape, color, and form helped shape modern art, and his perspective later influenced Cubism and Post-Impressionist painters.
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a French Impressionist painter known for landscapes and repeated studies of changing light, color, and atmosphere across the seasons.
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist whose career ranged from the Blue and Rose periods through Cubism, Surrealism, sculpture, printmaking, and ceramics.