What was Cezanne’s style of painting?



What are the characteristics of Paul Cézanne’s painting?

Cézanne’s often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne’s intense study of his subjects.

What painting techniques did Paul Cézanne use?

Paul Cézanne used heavy brush strokes during his early years and thickly layered paint onto the canvas. The texture of the compositions is tangible and the marks of his palette brush can be obviously discerned. Cézanne’s early work has previously been called ‘violent’ in nature because of the hasty brush work.

What type of paint did Cézanne use?





Sennelier fine oil paints

Paul Cézanne’s studio in Aix-en-Provence has confirmed it: Sennelier was the supplier to Paul Cézanne, who used 18 Sennelier fine oil paints. These colours can still be seen on the very last palette used by the painter, which is on display at the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence.

What was new about Cézanne’s method of painting?

Like the Impressionists, he adopted a “broken brushwork” technique. Unlike the quick, sketch-like brushstrokes characteristic of Impressionism, however, Cézanne employed “constructive strokes“—meticulously arranged marks that that worked together to create geometric forms.

In what ways are Paul Cézanne’s artworks different to impressionist artworks?

Working outdoors, but with a different purpose





Like the Impressionists, he often worked outdoors directly before his subjects. But unlike the Impressionists, Cézanne used color, not as an end in itself, but rather like line, as a tool with which to construct form and space.

How did Cézanne paint the canvas?

Like his hero Gustave Courbet, Cezanne preferred to paint using coarse, unprimed canvases to impart a dramatic tension to his work. Using a palette knife, Cezanne applied his paint in thick, blocky patches that would then form cracks on the rough surface of the unfinished canvas.