Midterm Essay

Paul Cezanne was known as one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century and inspired many generations of modern artists.  He was mostly remembered from the Post-Impressionism era and helped influence the Cubism and Fauvism periods of art.  Also, he helped build the bridge between the late nineteenth century of Impressionism to twentieth century of Cubism, giving him the name of “The Father of Modern Art”.  He created more than nine-hundred oil paintings and four-hundred watercolor paintings.  Cezanne seemed to be more original of an artist because he broke away from the Impressionism ideas and created his own art and did his own thing.  During the 1960s, when Cezanne painted as an Impressionist, he used dramatic tonal contrasts and thick layers of pigment.  After abandoning the post-Impressionism era and dark palettes, he started using brilliant tones and began painting outdoors with a wider range of colors.  His new ideas and work was a combination of many other movements of art such as, Fauvism, Cubism, and Expressionism.  His work helped demonstrate a mastery of design, color, composition, and draftsmanship.  Cezanne himself said, “Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one’s sensations.”  He used short, hatched brushstrokes to help ensure surface unity in his work and to model individual masses and spaces as if they were carved from paint.  These brushstrokes helped form the form of analysis for Cubism during the twentieth century.  As a result, he achieved flatness and spatiality through using his colors, while unifying and creating surface, affecting space and volume.  This specific characteristic from his work was portrayed as a pivotal step leading up to twentieth century abstract art.  Most of his works were not finished and destroyed by never fully attaining his own goals.  Cezanne was such a huge inspiration to other artists as well like, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, who were greatly influenced by him from his creativity and originality.  Cezanne clearly earned his name “The Father of Modern Art” because he helped mold a new type of art, which left a legacy for centuries for many people to admire and inspired many other modern artists.