Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Paul Cezanne Painter

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: France
  • Born: Jan 19, 1839
  • Died: Oct 22, 1906

Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects.

Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. Both Matisse and Picasso are said to have remarked that Cézanne "is the father of us all."

An art which isn't based on feeling isn't an art at all.

Art is a harmony parallel with nature.

I lack the magnificent richness of color that animates nature.

Don't be an art critic. Paint. There lies salvation.

I am more a friend of art than a producer of painting.

Pure drawing is an abstraction. Drawing and colour are not distinct, everything in nature is coloured.

The awareness of our own strength makes us modest.

I must be more sensible and realize that at my age, illusions are hardly permitted and they will always destroy me.

Is art really the priesthood that demands the pure in heart who belong to it wholly?

My nervous system is enfeebled, only work in oils can sustain me.

Doubtless there are things in nature which have not yet been seen. If an artist discovers them, he opens the way for his successors.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.

The truth is in nature, and I shall prove it.

I ask you to pray for me, for once age has overtaken us, we find consolation only in religion.

The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist himself.

Painting from nature is not copying the object it is realizing one's sensations.

My age and health will never allow me to realize the dream of art I've been pursuing all my life.

I have nothing to hide in art. The initial force alone can bring anyone to the end he must attain.

For an Impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations.

When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.

Genius is the ability to renew one's emotions in daily experience.

You say a new era in art is preparing you sensed it coming continue your studies without weakening. God will do the rest.

We must not be content to memorize the beautiful formulas of our illustrious predecessors. Let us go out and study beautiful nature.