Paul Cézanne, who was the son of a wealthy banker, became a painter in the 1860s in Paris when he quit his studies of Law. By 1874 he was painting landscapes in the Impressionist manner and had some of his work included in their first exhibition held during that very same year.
             He painted in the Impressionistic manner, but sheared off in a different direction to the main body of Impressionist painters. The main body of Impressionist painters were concerned with the 'fleeting effects of light and colour', and in order to capture the surface impression of that moment 'they had to work fluently and quickly'. CÉzanne's analysis was far more prolonged and pains taking; he spent so long analysing his subjects that some of his work was never finished.
             He began to be more concerned with the use of colour in modelling objects and landscape and as a way of expressing their underlying form. The basic ideas of Cubism have been claimed to be present in his philosophy. His theory was that the painter could always find the cone, the sphere and the cylinder in Nature, and that all natural shapes were composed of these shapes at their most basic form.
             CÉzanne inherited sufficient wealth to live in rich seclusion in Provence near Aix. He needed this solitude or he found it difficult getting on with others: being naturally ill at ease, neurotically sensitive and suffering from outbursts of temper.
             His great contribution to art was to make Impressionism solid: to restore the careful analysis of form and structure that pervaded the old masters but to combine this with an intensity of colour and harmony, full of personal expression. In his landscapes he showed a deep feeling for the force of nature in each sweeping line and chopping stroke of the brush, in the intense orange earth against the clear Provence skies.
             Always dissatisfied with his efforts, CÉzanne struggled unceasingly to reveal the truths of nature. He made many landsc
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