Paul Cezanne was born in 1839 in Aix-en-Provence. He died the year 1906. Cezanne worked with impressionists but was interested in other forms of art. He wanted to investigate the form, color, and structure of objects and how they could relate to each other in a painting. Cezanne was the oldest child born into a wealthy family. His father wanted him to carry on the family business. He was forced to go to law school for 2 years before he was allowed to go to meet his good friend (Emile Zola) in Paris to study art. There he attended the Atelier Suisse school for arts. His favorite artist was Gustave Courbet. Later he met Edouard Monet, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas. In 1869 he met an artist's model named Hortense Fiquet who became his girlfriend.
Cezanne was known to be shy,awkward, and moody, and his manned often appeared rude. They say he was mostly self-taught and so this made him original. Even though he was self-taught he was determined to learn from old masters. The summer of 1870 he left Paris to go to the south of France so he wouldn't be called to serve in the french army.
The pyramid of skulls was an oil painting, painted in 1901. This was shortly after the death of his mother (October 25, 1897). The painting was of 4 human skulls in pyramid shape. It was his only painting that was painted so close. It was said that he thought paintings were beautiful to paint. Inbetween the time the time of his mothers death and when this painting was painted he started getting sick. In one of his letters he wrote " For me, life has begun to be a deathly monotonous";" As for me, I'm old. I don't have time to express myself"; and " I might as well be dead". It seemed like when he painted this his mind was in a state of mortality that grew after his mothers death and so he started to fade into this state.
