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."

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

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

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

I lack the magnificent richness of color that animates nature.

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

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

Art is a harmony parallel with nature.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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