Apples and Oranges by Paul Cezanne Artist Biography Grade: 5 Activity: Still Life Grid Drawing Keywords: Still Life Meet the Artist: Born in Southern France, 1839-1906 /166 years / before light bulb and phone. Pioneer in art, very meticulous and strong minded about his art.  He painted the way he felt and not the way others told him too. One model who sat for a portrait came back 115 times and they couldn’t move a muscle. Frustrating life-not an easy person to get along with. He always wanted to be a painter but his wealthy Father was stern and insisted that Cezanne be banker or lawyer.  He went to school and worked for his father but was miserable. His father eventually paid for him to go to Paris to study art. At the beginning of his career, it was fashionable for artists to paint realistically, but Cezanne liked to paint very flat pictures. He liked to build up his paintings with lots of color and brush strokes. He layered thick paint, giving the subject a solid feel like they we’re carved in stone. This was very different from what was popular so Cezanne’s work was rejected in Paris. Moved back to Southern France and met Impressionists (Impressionism-brushstrokes and lots of color) and joined them but his work wasn’t accepted there either. He didn’t care, he wanted his work to look more permanent.  Went back to his hometown and decided to work only for himself. Unfortunately, he did not find much success with his work. However, his work was admired by soon to be famous artists like Monet, Renoir, Picasso and Van Gogh. They realized his talent and agreed his work influenced all of them.

He was an extremely slow painter He was an extremely slow painter. He is said to have had over 100 sitting for one portrait before he decided not to finish it. It was only after the age of fifty that Cezanne won praise for his work. In 1906 he wrote: “I am old and ill and have sworn to myself to die painting.” In October of 1906 he collapsed after being caught in a storm while painting outdoors, and died a few days later at the age of 67.  While Cezanne was alive his art dealer divided his paintings into two sizes. He sold them for $64.00 for the large ones and $26.00 for the small ones. In 1964 a Cezanne painting sold for 1.4 million. Cezanne is considered the father of modern art, and had a profound effect on Picasso. Possible Questions: What do you see in this picture? Where do you think this is? (artist’s studio) Why do you think the artist arranged these items like he did? This artwork is called a still-life. Do you know what that is? (   Does the painting seem heavy and solid to you-the way he liked to paint?  Why? Does it look flat?  (compare with another realistic still life print or picture from a book) Which one looks more 3 dimensional? Describe the colors of the painting- Light and darkness of a color in a painting is called Value-pink is a light value of red and navy is a dark value of blue In the painting Apples and Oranges, how does the white cloth in the background affect the painting?  How would it have looked if he had not used the white cloth?  Cezanne considered shapes to be the basic form of everything he painted. A shape is an outlined form like circles or squares. Some shapes are three dimensional like a sphere, cone or cylinder. (You may want to sketch examples on the board.) Which objects in the picture are spheres?  Fruit Which object is cone shaped?  Bowl Which object is shaped like a cylinder? Pitcher If you wanted to practice drawing these shapes, what would you choose to draw? Revised August 2014