Paul Cezanne

PAUL CEZANNE

Paul Cezanne was born in 1839 at Aix-en-Provence, a small town a few

miles inland from Marseilles, in the south of France. His father was a

prosperous hat retailer who later, in 1848 became proprietor of Aix's

only bank.

Paul's mother had been Louis-Auguste's mistress until they married in

1844 when Paul was five.

Throughout his childhood, Cezanne lived in fear of his powerful,

overbearing father. He grew up an angry, intense and unsociable man,

whose only real attachment was to his art.

At the age of 13, he became a boarder at Bourbon College in Aix. He was

an excellent scholar and though not very sociable, formed some close

friendships that were to last for most of his life. In their free time

Cezanne and his friends swam and fished. These times remained his

happiest memories, and the many bathing scenes in his later paintings

are touched with nostalgia.

At first, Cezanne and his friends believed he was destined to be a poet.

Gradually, however, his interest shifted to art and he began to attend

free classes at the local drawing academy. He dreamt of going to Paris

to study and work, but because he lived in fear of his domineering

father, he spent a year as a law student before confessing to his family

that he really wanted to become an artist. Eventually, he was allowed a

small allowance and permitted to go to Paris.

Six months later he returned home because of fits of depression in which

he ripped up his canvasses. But after a year of tedious work spent in

his father's bank, he decided to return again to Paris. Unfortunately,

he failed to pass the entrance examination ...