Paul Cezanne Quotes on Art

Paul Cezanne is a famous French Post-Impressionist painter. He is best known for his landscapes and still life paintings that went on to influence artists like Picasso and Matisse. He produced paintings, watercolors, and drawings. Famous Paul Cezanne works include “Banks of the Marne (Bords De La Marne)”, “Woman in a Green Hat (Madame Cezanne)”, “The Basket of Apples”, “Mont Sainte-Victoire”, “The Bathers”, and “The Card Players”.

Mini biography: Born Paul Cézanne on the 19th of January, 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, France. His mother was Anne Elisabeth Honorine Aubert and his father Louis Auguste Cézanne was a banker. He was married to Marie-Hortense Fiquet and they had one child together, also called Paul. The artist died on the 22nd of October, 1906 at the age of 67. Cezanne died of pneumonia and is buried at the Saint-Pierre Cemetery, Aix-en-Provence in France.

List of Paul Cezanne Art Quotes

All my life I have worked to be able to earn my living, but I thought that one could do good painting without attracting attention to one’s private life. Certainly, an artist wishes to raise himself intellectually as much as possible, but the man must remain obscure. The pleasure must be found in the work. Paul Cezanne

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

The point to be made clear is that, whatever may be our temperament, or our power in the presence of nature, we have to render what we actually see, forgetting everything that appeared before our own time. Which, I think, should enable the artist to express his personality to the full, be it large or small. Paul Cezanne

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

Allow me to repeat what I said when you (Émile Bernard) were here: deal with nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone, all placed in perspective, so that each side of an object or a plane is directed towards a central point. Paul Cezanne

Alas! The memories that are swallowed up in the abyss of the years! I’m all alone now and I would never be able to escape from the self-seeking of human kind anyway. Now it’s theft, conceit, infatuation, and now it’s rapine or seizure of one’s production. But Nature is very beautiful. They can’t take that away from me. Paul Cezanne

It took me 40 years to find out that painting is not sculpture. Paul Cezanne

I could paint for a hundred years, a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as though I knew nothing. Paul Cezanne

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. Paul Cezanne

What is one to think of those fools who tell one that the artist is always subordinate to nature? Art is in harmony parallel with nature. Paul Cezanne

The painter must enclose himself within his work; he must respond not with words, but with paintings. Paul Cezanne

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

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

Don’t be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation. Paul Cezanne

Everybody’s going crazy over the Impressionists; what art needs is a Poussin made over according to nature. There you have it in a nutshell. Paul Cezanne

You must forgive me for continually coming back to the same thing; but I believe in the logical development of everything we see and feel through the study of nature and turn my attention to technical questions later. Paul Cezanne

The Louvre is the book in which we learn to read. Paul Cezanne

Art Quotes About Paul Cezanne

Cézanne disturbs me. His efforts to achieve perfection are incompatible with the liberty of human thought. He has been searching for the absolute, which inhibits the natural flowering of life. Over-indulgence in reality spells death. André Derain

Cezanne, you see, is a sort of God of painting. Henri Matisse

Among the ancient painters, the Tuscan’s are the ones that interest me more: above all Giotto and Massacio. Of the modern painters I think that Corot, Courbet, Fattori, and Cezanne are the most legitimate heirs to the glorious Italian tradition. Giorgio Morandi

It is Cezanne’s feeling that determined the form of his pictorial structure. It is his pictorial structure that gives off his feeling. If all his pictorial structures were to disappear from the world, so would a certain feeling. Robert Motherwell

Paul Cezanne Self Portrait

More on Famous French Painter Paul Cézanne

How has Paul Cézanne influenced your art making? Is he one of your favorite famous Post-Impressionist painters? Let us know what you think about Paul Cezanne in the comments below.

Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh.