French painter,
often called the father of modern art, who strove to develop
an ideal synthesis of naturalistic representation, personal
expression, and abstract pictorial order.
Among the artists of his time, Cézanne perhaps has had the
most profound effect on the art of the 20th century. He was
the greatest single influence on both the French artist
Henri Matisse, who admired his use of color, and the Spanish
artist Pablo Picasso, who developed Cézanne's planar
compositional structure into the cubist style. During the
greater part of his own lifetime, however, Cézanne was
largely ignored, and he worked in isolation. He mistrusted
critics, had few friends, and, until 1895, exhibited only
occasionally. He was alienated even from his family, who
found his behavior peculiar and failed to appreciate his
revolutionary art.
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