Laveuses

Decorating with Cézanne Prints

Cézanne's Provence landscapes, with their earthy ochres, greens and blues, suit a living room or a hallway with good light. A Mont Sainte-Victoire view such as La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue des Lauves makes a strong single piece above a sofa or sideboard, while several of the smaller Sainte-Victoire or Jas de Bouffan scenes hang well together as a group.

His still lifes are a natural fit for a kitchen or dining room: Still Life with Apples and Peaches or Pommes Et Poires bring fruit, cloth and pottery to the table. For a study or library, try the portraits and card players, or the pencil studies, which look calm and considered in simple frames. The bathers suit a bedroom or a bathroom.

Famous Works

• The Card Players. Men seated at a table over a game of cards, a subject Cézanne painted in several versions in the 1890s, using farm workers from around the Jas de Bouffan as models.
• La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue des Lauves (Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves) (1904). The mountain seen from the hill above his last studio, the subject of his later years.
• The Large Bathers. Nude figures among trees, from the long series of bather paintings that occupied his final years.
• The Basket of Apples. A still life built around apples, a motif that runs through his whole career.
• Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair. A portrait of Hortense Fiquet, the sitter he painted more than anyone else.
• The Bay of Marseilles, Seen from L'Estaque. A view across the bay from the fishing village near Marseille where he painted often.
• La Maison du pendu (The House of the Hanged Man) (1873), Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Shown at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, where it was one of the few pictures to sell.

What art movement was Paul Cézanne part of?

Cézanne is classed as a Post-Impressionist. He exhibited with the Impressionists in 1874 and 1877, then developed a more structured style that influenced Cubism and much of 20th-century art.

What is Paul Cézanne known for?

He is best known for his paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire, his still lifes of apples, The Card Players and his large bather compositions. His way of building forms from planes of colour made him a key figure for modern painters.

Where can I see Paul Cézanne's original works?

Major collections include the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence, the National Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His studio at Les Lauves in Aix is open to the public.

How can I recognise Cézanne's style?

Look for repeated, often diagonal brushstrokes laid down in patches of colour, simplified shapes, and objects that feel solid and are sometimes slightly tilted. He spoke of treating nature "in terms of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone".

Why did Cézanne paint Mont Sainte-Victoire so many times?

The mountain rises over the countryside around Aix, his home town, and he returned to it again and again in his later life, in dozens of oils and watercolours. In an 1878 letter to Zola he described it simply as "a beautiful motif".