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How Cezanne Inspired Picasso, Matisse, and modern artists
From Matisse to Picasso, from Marsden Hartley to contemporary artists, Cezanne’s work has continued to inspire new interpretations. Through sometimes unexpected connections, the exhibition “Cézanne and Us” explores more than a century of artistic influence and legacy.
Long overlooked by the general public, the painter from Aix-en-Provence became, at the turn of the 20th century, an essential point of reference for the new avant-garde movements. His approach to constructing forms, working with color, and depicting nature opened up new perspectives for modern painting.
But Cezanne did not inspire all artists in the same way. Some focus on his explorations of composition, others on his treatment of volume or his relationship to the landscape. The exhibition at the Grand Palais juxtaposes his works with those of his artistic heirs to reveal the richness of these artistic dialogues.
Matisse and Picasso: two interpretations of Cezanne
Among the artists who recognized Cezanne’s importance at an early stage, Henri Matisse holds a special place. In 1899, he purchased the painting Trois Baigneuses from art dealer Ambroise Vollard. It was a work to which he remained deeply attached: he considered it essential to Czanne’s oeuvre and credited it with having a decisive influence on his own artistic perseverance. In 1936, he donated it to the Petit Palais, taking care to urge the museum to ensure its preservation.
Pablo Picasso, too, discovered Cezanne’s work at Vollard’s gallery during his first exhibition in France in 1901. He was particularly interested in Cezanne’s explorations of spatial construction and the representation of volume. In his Portrait d'Ambroise Vollard (1910) , takes the fragmentation of the figure and the deconstruction of pictorial space even further. An approach that attests to Cezanne’s decisive role in the history of Cubism.
Marsden Hartley, Mont Sainte-Victoire (montagne rouge), Vers 1927, 50.8 x 61 cm, Huile sur toile
Mount Sainte-Victoire
Among Cezanne’s iconic motifs, Mont Sainte-Victoire holds a unique place. Painted many times by the artist, it became much more than a Provençal landscape: a true canvas for pictorial experimentation.
In 1927, American painter Marsden Hartley painted his own Mont Sainte-Victoire (shown here). After visiting a Cezanne retrospective in Paris, he traveled to Provence in search of the master’s vantage point. But his painting is not limited to reproducing a famous landscape: it reflects his own interpretation of this motif and Cezanne’s artistic legacy.
Other artists have continued this tradition. The painter and poet Etel Adnan transformed Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire into a pictorial absolute, which she reinterpreted in her own colorful landscapes (below). Zao Wou-Ki paid homage to it in 2005 with a diptych titled Homage to Cezanne. Vera Molnár, for her part, explores the mountain’s forms through a series of variations created between 1989 and 1996. These are all ways of using the same landscape as a starting point for new artistic explorations.
A legacy that lives on
Beyond the early avant-garde movements of the 20th century, Cezanne’s influence continues to be felt in a wide variety of artistic approaches. Some artists are interested in the structure of his compositions, others in the expressive power of his colors or his relationship to reality.
Shown here is the work Lake II by Ellsworth Kelly, created in 2002, in which the artist isolates the blue form representing the sea and the gulf in the painting Cezanne’s Le Golfe de Marseille vu de l'Estaque (circa 1878–1879 or 1885).
Cezanne’s legacy cannot be reduced to a single aesthetic or artistic movement. It constitutes a set of avenues that each generation can explore, transform, and sometimes challenge.
“Cezanne and Us” reveals the full richness of these connections: not a linear history of a master’s influence on his successors, but a succession of unique perspectives on a body of work that continues to inspire contemporary art.
