'Thomas Ferns
'Art essay


The person I will be writing my essay on is Paul Cezanne, he belongs to many different movements, but some of the ones i'm going to mention are post-impressionism, cubism, modern art, and maybe a little more. He was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839, can be said to have probably formed the bridge between the late 19th century impressionism, and near the early 20th century's new line of artistic inquiry.
Cezanne tends to do work such as portraits and still life, and some other stuff on the side. A portrait is a painting, sculpture or photograph that is an artistic representation of a person, in which usually the face and its expression is predominant. The intent of a portrait is to describe emotion, personality, and even the different mood of the person, there's lots of things you can read from a simple portrait, but for still life, it's quite different, A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, which can be typically common objects which are natural, or man-made like glasses, jewelry, coins etc. The still life can show emotions too, it can show on the colours and lighting if it's a dark and sad depressing photo or it can be colourful joyful and alot of other different things.
Post-Impressionism, is a French art movement that was developed between 1886 and 1905; post-impressionism emerged as a reaction against impressionist' concern for the naturalistic depiction of light and colour. Most of paul cezannes painting are in darker colours, line they are set in olden times, but they can still be quite colourful and full of life... cezanne would mostly do portraits or still lifes, where the subject matter would be the feeling or mood of the person, or the picture that the fruit in the still life represents, it can show that it's a nice lovely day or it's a dark gloomy day, Depending on the colours used and the way it's painted. Paul Cezanne used heavy brush strokes during his earlier years and then would thickly layer paint onto the canvas afterwords. The texture of some of the compositions is tangible and most of the marks of his palette brush can be obviously discerned. Most of his work was considered to be "violent" in nature because of the hasty brush work.

Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses
1890 Oil on Canvas. 73 cm. x 92.4 cm.

It was very rare for cezanne to paint flowers as they were apt to wilt before his deliberations were complete, but he did depict apples aplenty, In this he convincingly modelled in the 3rd dimension but enclosed in taut circular outlines. The other circular things are the primrose, as is the right side of the enclosing pot. The whole plant looks very flat and dull, but does seem to lean out towards us. The apples and cloth are nicely merged together in the 3rd dimension: as they are set neat on the left side of the table but then spread out over the cloth nearer the middle and the right of the painting. The wall in the back is just plain, not really much to show but the fact that it's a little gloomy down upon the table. the apples are spread between colour, some are red, some are green, some are a mixture making them quite yellowy and orange, this gives nice contrast along meaning it's not all the same colours and it's actually spread out. The title is simple and matches what the photo displays, it's nice and simple just telling it as it is. I don't personally have any emotional feel to this painting as it just looks like a painting to me of a table with a flower pot and some fruit. but to other people they might feel gloomy or happy depending on who they are and what has happened to them during recent events. The painting looks like it was took time on, he made it look really realistic and third dimensional. This art must have been quite successful, as it is painted nicely and shows what it is, it would be nice to hang on a wall or just look at whenever you're bored, but other people have different opinions that is just mine personally. The scale of the painting is also very deliberate, it scales nicely between the flowers and the apples and oranges, which make it look even more realistic.

The Basket of Apples
1895 Oil on canvas. 65 cm x 80 cm.

This painting is very unique, everything is spread out as if something has fallen, or has it... it's hard to tell if the table is deliberatly set out like that or accidentally, has the fruit fallen over? It all depends on what the person looking at it thinks. This painting consists of fruit in a basket, a bottle, some cookies in the top right, and apples and oranges scattered across a table with cloth under it making it look 3 dimensional and realistic, The title only relates to the basket, which is in the painting ofcourse, the title has nothing to do with the bottle cookies or anything else except the apples, it doesnt show that the rest of spread across the table and the cloth is underneath making it look scruffy and messy. Cezanne used colour really nicely in this piece, he used it to show the difference between the different types of apples, the dark basket with shade and the table is roughly a small different colour from the basket, overall he has used the colours greatly to get a nice effect between the different points of focus in the painting itself. The mood of this painting is hard to tell, honestly the mood isnt to obvious in this painting it's kind of determined by opinion, and in my opinion it feels just normal, as if it's a quite day and it's just a table with some fruit on it, not sure what else I can say about it but that's my opinion, it doesn't make me feel happy or sad at all, but again it's differential between peoples opinions and the effects that it has on them. Cezanne used some lines to heavy outline the cloth between the fruit and the table which is quite heavy, he also used some lines around the table and the basket, helping us identify the difference in colours and appearance between the different objects in the painting. This painting looks 3 dimensional and partially not realistic, some of the features stand out to much for it to look real, such as the outline between the basket and the wall, and the bottle is a little wierdly shaped on the right as it would be exactly perfect if it was more realistic. The scale of the objects is kind of spread out, everything is a different size and i'm not sure if it would mach what the size of the objects in proportion to each other in real view, or real life as per say. Honestly i'm not to sure on whether this would be successful or not, it's just a painting of a table with a basket bottle and cookies apples on it, nothing really pleases my about this painting apart from the nice work he has done in painting it, personally i would not buy it to look at or anything like that as i'm not a big fan of art and things such as that, but someone somewhere may want to buy this to look at as it might have a effect on them that it doesnt have on me.

Paul Cezanne was usually influenced by other artists or other people such as edouard manet, camille pissarro, gustave courbet, eugene delacroix. nicolas poussin and charles francois daubigny... I guess he may have just been influenced by them and it encouraged him to paint the things he did and in the way he did, another influence was by his father, who was the co owner of a banking company which would also encourage cezanne a little to do the painting and things that he did. He must have found pleasure in the other peoples paintings and work so he decided to make his own work that was similar but different, whcih means it was kind of like that things that they did but different, he was influenced by them to do the paintings he done and i'm not really sure what else I can write about who influenced him, they basically made him do what he done and encouraged him to make more paintings in a different style.

I choose this artist because he has some great work and I had to pick someone for my essay, he has a lot of work which would make it a little bit easier for me to pick a few to analyse and tell his story, I found alot of information about him by researching on the web and by paper sheets and other things. He has had more of an effect on me that the other people that i considered to study, his work is simpler and I like his titles all together, I just thought he would be good to pick and write an essay on. in conclusion, i've learned a lot about his style and why he painted the things he done, he was influenced greatly by other people which inspired him to do some of the amazing work he did, his style is very good and usually 3 dimensional, along with the portraits which show the models feeling and emoitions, overall he is a great painter and it was quite enjoyable to research and write this essay about him overall.