"Cézanne" by Joachim Gasquet is a biographical memoir and critical portrait written in the early 20th century. It focuses on the life and art of Paul Cézanne, blending intimate reminiscences, historical texture, and close readings of his work to show a painter torn between romantic impulse and uncompromising fidelity to nature. The narrative follows his Provençal roots, friendships, and working habits to illuminate how his vision took shape.
The opening of the book sets Cézanne in his native Aix-en-Provence beneath Montagne Sainte-Victoire, then moves through his birth, family milieu, and the Jas de Bouffan, including a vivid tribute to his self-made, much-admired father. We see the child’s attachment to markets and peasants, his formidable memory, and the decisive youthful bond with Zola and Baille—country walks, river swims, and shared readings that form his credo of painting as the realization of sensations. Early museum encounters (Granet, Puget, Lenain) and academic attempts reveal a lifelong tension between grand, romantic visions and a strict, classical truth to what the eye sees. After a false start in law and bouts of despair, he commits to painting, finds academic instruction hollow, clashes with his family, and finally reaches Paris to draw at the Académie Suisse, befriend Emperaire and Villevieille, and haunt the Louvre—only to oscillate between zeal and dejection. A return to Aix yields the decorative Four Seasons at the Jas, before Paris again brings Manet and, crucially, Pissarro, who urges him toward direct work from nature even as he erupts into mythic, allegorical scenes. The section ends in this creative crosswind, crystallized by the vision of a slashed, blazing canvas that embodies his early turmoil. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
