The Father of Modern Art.  What a weighty title Paul Cezanne (France, 1839-1906) earned for himself.  It certainly wasn’t easily obtained.

Have you ever doubted yourself? Paul Cezanne struggled with many uncertainties throughout his life. He endured the skepticism of his family along with multiple failures. He wasn’t a spectacular art student, and he was unsure whether his passion was correctly placed.  Despite these hardships, he persevered in creating the art that he loved using simple geometric forms.

Every artist has their quirks. Cezanne’s was that he preferred for his models to sit still, very, very still.  So still, in fact, that many models eventually refused to work for him. He was an immensely patient man, and he worked tirelessly to ensure that his colors and shading were just right.  People move, and that reality frustrated him greatly.  Perhaps this is why he is best known not his portraits, but for his landscapes and still-life paintings such as this one:

His goal wasn’t to just paint the fruit to look perfect, or realistic, but to make sure that it was presented in the most positive light possible. In fact, he intentionally outlined the apples in dark shades and tilted the table forward a bit to highlight the shape of the fruit. It is these tiny shifts that cause us to call Cezanne the “Father of Modern Art.” His work led to a transition in the art world that eventually brought us the cubism of masters like Picasso.

Online activities

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has created a fantastic resource.  Take a look at Cezanne’s Astonishing Apples, and don’t miss the story “An Apple a Day” on the very last tab!

Read

Meeting Cezanne  by Michael Morpurgo is a charming book that explores Cezanne’s famous Franch landscape.  It also touches on the relationship between Picasso and Cezanne.  It is short but very nicely done.   

Create

ArtforSmallHands has a very simple tutorial on painting Cezanne inspired still-lifes that my kids really enjoyed.

We also created our own apple decorated boxes to remind us about Cezanne’s unique view of planes, and his desire to “Take Paris with an apple.”  We used the directions for folding a paper box from instructibles as a starting point, and then cut out apple shapes from newspaper and shaded them with chalk pastels.

Here is the full list of supplies that we used to complete the project:

• Reeves soft pastels
• Tru Ray Acid Free Construction Paper 12”x18” – 1 sheet of white cut in half, or two sheets of copy paper

• Scotch 3M clear glue stick
• Scissors
• Several paper towels

Consider

“For I am the Lord, your God,
who takes hold of your right hand and says to you,
Do not fear; I will help you.”
(Isaiah 41:13)

Sadly, Cezanne is known to have said, “life is terrifying.” He used the act of painting to sooth himself, painting while police looked for him for dodging the draft, and even on day that mother died.  He suffered with a dark depression, and kept himself fairly isolated.

Everyone feels afraid at some time, but it must be awful to feel that life is terrifying.

So, what do you think?  Does his perspective and work fit what you would expect from “The Father of Modern Art?”
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