Happy Birthday Cézanne

Welcome back, blog readers! Join us in celebrating the 172^nd birthday of Paul Cézanne, the famous post-impressionist artist. Cézanne was (and is) so influential, even Google is celebrating with a special logo on its website today. Cézanne belonged to that class of artists moving away from direct representation of natural objects and more towards a focus on the artist’s own expression. Modern and post-Modern art follows a path that leads right through Cézanne and his contemporaries. Jonathan Jones of The Guardian explains the famous painter’s revolutionary approach: “Cézanne stared so intensely at nature he began to take it apart in his mind, to anatomise it, theorise it, on long hot afternoons in his studio in Aix-en-Provence and then reassemble the elements of reality in paintings that are pixellated constellations of insights, recognitions, memories and flashes of desire or rage.”  If you’re not familiar with this legendary artist and his role in the progression of Western art, perhaps it’s time to pick up Art Theory For Beginners and join us in the celebration!