Paul Cézanne - Delphi Complete Paintings of Paul Cézanne (Illustrated)

In 1858, agednineteen, Czanne complied with his fathers wishes and attended the law schoolof the University of Aix, though his passion was for art and he continuedreceiving drawing lessons. This resulted in him taking the bold step ofdispleasing his father by committing himself to pursuing the life of an artist,leaving Aix for Paris in 1861. Czanne was strongly encouraged to make thisdecision by his old school friend, the novelist mile Zola, who was alreadyliving in the capital at the time. Eventually, Czannes father would bereconciled with the decision and supported his sons choice of career. In lateryears, following his fathers death, Czanne received an inheritance of 400,000francs, removing all financial worries.

In Paris,Czanne met the Impressionist Camille Pissarro, forming a friendship that wouldhave a lasting impression of both his personal life and his artistic output. Hewould later describe Pissarro as like a father to me; almost like the good God.Initially, the friendship between Pissarro and Czanne was that of master and student,in which Pissarro exerted a formative influence on the younger artist. However,over the course of the following decade their landscape painting excursionstogether, in Louveciennes and Pontoise, led to more of a collaborative workingrelationship between equals.

Now housed inParis Muse dOrsay, The Hanged MansHouse was one of the three canvases that Czanne presented at the firstImpressionist exhibition of 1874, demonstrating the early influence of Pissarrosmethod. The more experienced artist had taught Czanne the importance of en plein air painting the act ofpainting outdoors. The title of thepiece is named after a local legend of a house in Auvers-sur-Oise, where Czannecompleted the canvas under the careful eye of Pissarro in 1873.

Like the otherImpressionists, Czanne employs pale colours and broken brushstrokes and haschosen a commonplace subject for his canvas. The image presents several strongaxes leading away from a central point, with a path that climbs to the left,while another leads down towards the centre of the painting and a bank curvesaway to the right. The branches of the trees angle off to the top of thepainting. The lack of people in the scene and the stiff, austere representationof the vegetation, balanced with the cool colours, help to conjure an atmosphereof solitude. Although the painting puzzled the critics when it was first shown,it was nonetheless the first that Czanne managed to sell to a collector andone of the only paintings to be sold at the mostly maligned exhibition.