Paul Cézanne

Introduction & Top Questions
Early life and work
Impressionist years
Development of his mature style
Final years
Legacy

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images, Videos & Interactives

Oil painting self-portrait by Paul Cezanne showing a balding man with a beard, wearing a dark coat, set against a patterned background.

Painting by Paul Cezanne showing a young boy, Louis Guillaume, with short brown hair, wearing a dark jacket and a white scarf, seated against a muted blue-green background.

Paul Cézanne: Still Life with Ginger Jar, Sugar Bowl, and Oranges

Paul Cézanne: Pines and Rocks (Fontainebleau?)

Paul Cézanne: Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from the Bibémus Quarry

At a Glance

Paul Cézanne summary

Quizzes

Color pastels, colored chalk, colorful chalk. Hompepage blog 2009, arts and entertainment, history and society

Ultimate Art Quiz

Close-up of a palette held by a man. Mixing paint, painting, color mixing.

Artists, Painters, & Architects

Tate Modern extension Switch House, London, England. (Tavatnik, museums). Photo dated 2017.

Can You Match These Lesser-Known Paintings to Their Artists?

"The Birth of Venus," tempera on canvas by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1485; in the Uffizi, Florence.

Who Painted the Most Expensive Paintings in the World?

Related Questions

Did Paul Cézanne and Marie-Hortense Fiquet have children?
How did Boy in a Red Waistcoat connect Paul Cézanne’s art to Classical sculpture?
How did Camille Pissarro influence Paul Cézanne’s brushwork and colors?
How did Camille Pissarro teach Paul Cézanne about Impressionist painting?
How did Gustave Courbet influence Paul Cézanne’s early paintings?
How did Paul Cézanne approach portrait painting differently from many other artists?
How did Paul Cézanne arrange objects in his still-life paintings?
How did Paul Cézanne balance flat design with the illusion of deep space?
How did Paul Cézanne become financially independent after 1886?
How did Paul Cézanne combine figures and landscape in his Bathers paintings?
How did Paul Cézanne depict Mont Sainte-Victoire in his later paintings?
How did Paul Cézanne influence Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque?
How did Paul Cézanne meet Émile Zola?
How did Paul Cézanne use color and shape in Boy in a Red Waistcoat?
How did Paul Cézanne use color to create perspective?
How did Paul Cézanne’s art influence modern abstract painting?
How did Paul Cézanne’s early style differ from his mature style?
How did Paul Cézanne’s work help inspire Cubism?
How did painting at L’Estaque change Paul Cézanne’s landscapes?
How did the 1907 Salon d’Automne retrospective change Paul Cézanne’s reputation?
How many versions of The Card Players did Paul Cézanne paint?
How was Paul Cézanne’s approach different from that of the Impressionists?
What did Paul Cézanne mean by reducing nature to spheres, cones, and cylinders?
What illness contributed to Paul Cézanne’s death in 1906?
What makes The Card Players by Paul Cézanne distinctive?
What was Paul Cézanne’s Bathers series about?
When and where did Paul Cézanne die?
When and where was Paul Cézanne born?
When did Ambroise Vollard organize Paul Cézanne’s first one-person exhibition?
When did Mont Sainte-Victoire become a dominant subject in Paul Cézanne’s landscapes?
When did Paul Cézanne marry Marie-Hortense Fiquet?
Where did Paul Cézanne first study painting in Paris?
Where was Paul Cézanne buried?
Which Impressionist exhibitions included paintings by Paul Cézanne?
Which artists influenced Paul Cézanne during the early 1860s?
Which major artists collected paintings by Paul Cézanne?
Who was Marie-Hortense Fiquet in Paul Cézanne’s life?
Why are Paul Cézanne’s still-life paintings considered important?
Why did Paul Cézanne leave Paris during the Franco-German War?
Why did Paul Cézanne leave law school to study painting?
Why did Paul Cézanne paint Mont Sainte-Victoire so often?
Why did Paul Cézanne’s friendship with Émile Zola end?
Why did Picasso call Paul Cézanne the father of modern painting?
Why did the public take so long to appreciate Paul Cézanne’s paintings?
Why were Paul Cézanne’s paintings criticized at the Impressionist exhibitions?
What is Paul Cézanne famous for?
How was Paul Cézanne educated?
Why is Edvard Munch so famous?
What was the tragedy of Edvard Munch?
What is Edvard Munch most known for?
What was the impact of Edvard Munch’s work on modern art?
Why is Francisco Goya famous?
Who influenced Peter Paul Rubens?
Why is Piet Mondrian so famous?
What is Piet Mondrian famous for?

Visual Arts Painting Painters

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External Websites

ABC listen - Cezanne: a new biography
Official Site of Paul Cezanne
Art in Context - Paul CÃ©zanne Â– Biography of the Famous Post-Impressionist
Artnet - Paul Cï¿½zanne
Art UK - Paul Cï¿½zanne
Guggenheim - Biography of Paul Cï¿½zanne
BBC - The painter who revealed how our eyes really see the world
Art Institute of Chicago - Biography of Paul Cezanne
TheArtStory - Paul Cï¿½zanne
World History Encyclopedia - Paul Cï¿½zanne
The Met - Paul CÃ©zanne (1839Â–1906)

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Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Paul Cézanne - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Paul Cézanne

French artist

Written by

René Huyghe

Professor of Art, College of France, Paris, 1950–76. President, Council of Museums, Paris, 1974–88. Author of Cézanne; Delacroix ou le combat solitaire; and others.

René Huyghe

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Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

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Last updated

Oct. 18, 2026 •History

Paul Cézanne (born January 19, 1839, Aix-en-Provence, France—died October 22, 1906, Aix-en-Provence) was a French painter, one of the greatest of the Post-Impressionists, whose works and ideas were influential in the aesthetic development of many 20th-century artists and art movements, especially Cubism. Cézanne’s art, misunderstood and discredited by the public during most of his life, grew out of Impressionism and eventually challenged all the conventional values of painting in the 19th century because of his...

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