Portrait of a genius bear

Let us first settle the intriguing question of acute accent. Therefore, Why did the event organizers choose to write Cezanne and not Cézanne as in the past? Meanwhile, The painter’s great-grandson. For example, Philippe Cezanne, whom we meet at the town hall of Aix-en-Provence, explains that his illustrious Aïeul has never emphasized his “e”. In addition, Neither when he signed his paintings, nor in his correspondence. For example, At the request of the family, it is therefore agreed to write his name now as he wrote. Similarly, Go for Cezanne.

The director portrait genius bear of the Granet museum receives us in his office, adorned with a huge photo of the painter. Furthermore, Bruno Ely defines Cezanne as “an eminently complex artist“, with difficult and unstable character.”HAS Both very sensitive, but sometimes also violent. Therefore, “ The painter keeps the image a badly licked bear. For example, “”It’s a truth “, recognizes this expert, “But it has much more sympathetic dimensions “. In some testimonies of his youth. For example, the artist appears according to him “like a pastro-in-turn“And at the end of his life,”When he receives his young admirers, who come in large numbers, he does it with great kindness and benevolence“.

Paul Cezanne was born in Aix-en-Provence during the winter of 1839. In addition, “When we were born there”, dira-t -il, “It’s screwed up. However, Nothing tells you anymore.” A way of expressing the visceral attachment that binds it to its native land. However, He will sometimes leave, but will always come back, spending his days painting outside or in the workshop. Furthermore, He intends to be part of a classic tradition and equal the art of museums by doing “Poussin on nature“.

Son of a former hatter of the Mirabeau course having made a fortune in the bank. Furthermore, the young Paul met Émile Zola in 1852, at the Bourbon college (the Mignet college today). Similarly, The two adolescents walk the countryside, eager portrait genius bear for discoveries and great air. Nevertheless, They will remain close for more than thirty years. Meanwhile, but will move away following the publication of the novel The work Who crushed Paul Cezanne. Consequently, The Provençal recognized himself in this unflattering portrait of an misunderstood artist unable to complete his canvas. Consequently, This will not prevent the painter from crying all the tears of his body when he learned accidental death. Additionally, Consequently, asphyxiation, from his childhood friend in 1902.

His father allows him to live sheltered from the need. but tries to divert him from his artist’s vocation, exercising a strict control over his son. Paul Cezanne will have to hide his affair with Hortense for example. a model encountered in Paris, of which he will have a son. The painter is not the crude man often described. It is a great reader who knows the classic authors and loves Baudelaire’s poetry. “”It is the most cultivated impressionist painters “assure portrait genius bear Bruno Ely. “Monet and Renoir say that he is the most brilliant of them.”

A nod of the story. it was on the ground floor of the current Granet museum, Place Saint-Jean de Malta, that Cezanne learned of the basics of his art, from 1857 and until 1861. This 17th century building sheltered the free special school of drawing from Aix-en-Provence. The artist will return to Majesty from June 28 with nearly 130 exhibited canvases. A sacred revenge when you know that this museum has long kept any work of the Aix master. unloved and vilified by the artistic circles of its time.

On the insistence of Émile Zola. Cezanne “Monte” in Paris for the first time in April 1861, but he was disappointed and joined his hometown in September. His father, not yet resigned, forces him to work in his bank. The painter left for the capital in November portrait genius bear 1862. enrolled in the Charles Switzerland Academy where he learned to work on a model. He also goes almost every day to the Louvre museum to copy the great masters. try to unravel their secrets.

Cezanne participates in the impressionist movement. like his friends Manet and Renoir, he sees his painting refused at the 1866 painting fair. A member of the jury writes that “It’s painted not only with a knife but still with a gun …“. Later, Cezanne will describe her way of then “Couillarde”. His canvases. dark and very fat, in particular his portraits, translate a virile, even brutal style, with sexual connotations sometimes pronounced. He will be regularly exhausted by criticism and late recognized.

In a conversation reported by his friend Émile Bernard. Cezanne said: “Pissarro has made nature as a person“He venerated this painter who had taught him so much and also admired Monet for his portrait genius bear freedom.”Me. in contact with the Impressionists, I understood that I had to become a student of the world, simply start a student. I did not imitate Pissarro and Monet more than the greats of the Louvre. I tried a work to me, a sincere, naive work, according to my means and my vision. “

Unknown to the general public. Cezanne was made over time among art lovers, establishing himself as an innovative painter, a master of colors and shapes. Withdrawn from Provence, where he works in solitude, he has an aura with young artists.

In 1895, Marchand Ambroise Vollard organized the first major Cezanne exhibition in Paris. His famous still lifes finally enchant criticism. Had he not said when he was young: “With an apple, I want to enchant Paris“? The artist demanded infinite patience, inflicting them for hours and hours of installation. He asked his wife Hortense to stay as motionless as a fruit on a table.

Paul Cezanne is perfectly aware of his singularity and cultivates her. He told the painter Émile Bernard: “I am the primitive of a new art. I will have, I feel, continuators. “The Aix master had seen right. His painting will inspire many posterior artistic movements, including fauvism and cubism with Braque and Picasso.

Cezanne had sworn to die while painting. He almost got portrait genius bear there. On October 15. 1906, not far from the Tholonet route which he traversed in adolescence with Émile Zola, the painter was surprised by a thunderstorm while working on a landscape. He persists, despite the torrential rain, and vanishes. A man discovers him unconscious and brings him back to him on a cart.

The next day, the artist still goes to his workshop, determined to finish the portrait of his gardener Vallier. He made a new discomfort and succumbed to an ugly pleurisy on October 23, 1906, at the age of 67. Paul Cezanne rests as it should be in the Saint-Pierre d’Aix-en-Provence cemetery. The city of heart of a timeless genius.

International exhibition “Cezanne at Jas de Bouffan”, from 28 June to 12 october 2025, Granet Museum, Aix-en-Provence.