Paul Cézanne

'At the beginning of the 20th century our relationship with Modernism is complex. like many 'isms', it seems both to stand for something clearly definable-a major 20th century movement in art, architecture and literature even culture and yet to demand continuous and ever probing investigation into its history and significance. The buildings we inhabit, the chairs we sit on, the graphic design that surrounds us have all been created by the aesthetics and ideology of Modernist design. we live in an era that still identifies itself in terms of Modernism'

Modernism has made a dent into our everyday lives and has manifest itself in our surroundings, that no longer we are satisfied it being stuck in paintings and drawings it is in our furniture and buildings. Those were created by Modernist architectures  that rebelled the idea that the concept of furniture was purely decorative and wanted to create objects that emphasizes the function rather than imitate the nature.

Paul Cézanne

Modernism's idea was to reject the past and welcome the future. Many artists at the time started to question what art should be and what it was supposed to support. During his lifetime Cézanne introduced a range of new techniques and treatments, but most of them were related to the central idea of what a painting should be. In value his work links the aspects of Impressionism and later in the 20^th century funded the movements of Fauvism, Cubism, Expression and now even towards complete abstraction.

The famous French painter Henri Matisse found his ideas so radical that he declared that Cézanne was ‘the father to us all’. And even a young Pablo Picasso drew strength and influence from him and later would steer the way of art into another unpredictable direction.

Throughout his life, Cezanne always disliked the way the Impressionists style that they painted; he felt that their work was too loose and too chaotic for him, also he thought that the works of impressionists lacked form of structure; therefore he chose to break away from Impressionism. He was greatly interested in cubistic and abstract forms and the use of colour and tone. He was then known to be a successful catalyst for abstract art and the mechanism in creating Cubism of Picasso. Cezanne wanted a more formal structure for form and an emotional outlook, which is why he was very attracted to the idea of Cubism and abstraction.

Most of Cézanne’s way of thinking was more apparent in his landscape works. By creating the works he took the theory of Impressionism that included recording objectively reality, while the Impressionists did this by focusing on transient light, Cézanne took the theory into an alternative root by putting more focus on emphasizing forms. Cezanne itemised objects such as trees, mountain and houses by only using colour, which in turn created one large field of varying tones. This effects causes the view to appear two-dimensional, yet can still be easily recognisable.

Dan, Empty Easel, Paul Cezanne: Father of Modern Art, (Online) 11:48, Tuesday 25 October 2011, Available here: http://emptyeasel.com/2007/02/27/paul-cezanne-father-of-modern-art/

Unknown, Bbc, Artist-Cézanne,(Online), 11:40, Tuesday 25 October 2011, Available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A774911

Unknown, BADARTISTSCOPYGOODARTISTSSTEAL, Paul Cézanne: Father of Modern Art, (Online), 11:43, Monday 24 October 2011, Available here: http://badartistscopygoodartistssteal.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/paul-cezanne-the-father-of-modern-art/

Modernism 1914-1939 Designing a New World, Introduction: What was Modernism?, 2006, Christopher Wilk page 12