The Card Players (detail) by Paul Cézanne, 1890
Widely considered the “Father of Modern Art,” Paul Cézanne broke away from tradition through a radically new way of seeing—and painting—transforming even the most mundane objects into phenomena worthy of wonder. Though his work opened the path for the 20th-century avant-garde, he remained deeply invested in the visual culture of the past, especially the art of the Old Masters.
Like other artists of his generation, he was committed to capturing fleeting impressions of the visible world. At the same time, his emphasis on forms as solids, his use of large planes of color and light, and his sensitivity to multiple viewpoints quickly set him apart from the Impressionists. And despite his increasingly pronounced tendency toward abstraction, he remained firmly connected to the “real.” As he noted concerning his artistic aims, “painting from nature is not copying the object,” but rather the realization of “one’s sensations.”
Art historian Aneta Georgievska-Shine considers Cézanne’s groundbreaking approach to gain a fuller appreciation of that new way of seeing—and how it enabled him to forge an entirely new mode of representing the world.
10 a.m.–11:15 a.m. Background and Formative Years
An exploration of Cézanne’s early life in Aix-en-Provence, his move to Paris, and the formative influences that shaped his artistic development.
11:30 a.m.–12:45 p.m. Still Life and the Transformation of the Ordinary
An analysis of Cézanne’s still lifes with a focus on how he elevated everyday objects—apples, bottles, drapery—into powerful explorations of structure, perception, and balance.
12:45–1:15 p.m. Break
1:15–2:30 p.m. The Human Figure: From Portraits to Abstractions
Cézanne’s treatment of the human figure, from intimate portraits to the monumental bathers, moving toward a visual language that anticipates abstraction.
2:45–4 p.m. Nature: Change and Permanence
A focus on Cézanne landscapes, especially his many views of Mont Sainte-Victoire, and the ways in which they reveal his attempt to reconcile the shifting effects of light and atmosphere with an underlying sense of structural permanence.
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