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00:00Pablo Picasso once said he was my one and only master don't you think I've looked at his paintings
00:11I spent years studying them Cezanne he was like the father of us all
00:17in 1895 a French painter from a small town of Aix-en-Provence was given the
00:32first solo exhibition of his work in the heart of the art world Paris
00:37this huge exhibition showcasing some 150 works was the break the artist needed for fame and financial success
00:53Paul Cezanne had been painting for more than 40 years with little public recognition
01:06but when his exhibition opened he wasn't there he stayed home in Provence painting
01:36Cezanne in Provence is made possible by a generous grant from the Eugene B Casey Foundation
01:44there are treasures to be taken away from this country which has not yet found an interpreter
01:54equal to the abundance of riches which it displays Paul Cezanne
01:59what's it pulls Cezanne apart was his lifelong quest to paint the land that gave birth to him
02:08and to which he would always return Cezanne wrote
02:14it is only there that I have found true evidence of the life of our light present in its simplest form
02:24the austere and tender beauty of our province
02:33Provence and Cezanne defined each other as a child he ran in its fields bathed in its streams
02:42and climbed its hills one companion a boy named Emile Zola would grow up to be as important an author
02:51as Cezanne was an artist when Zola left their hometown ex-en-Provence the young Cezanne wrote to his friend
03:00my dear Emile do you remember the pine tree which planted on the bank of the river arc bowed its shaggy head
03:08above the steep slope extending at its feet this pine which protected our bodies from the blaze of the sun
03:15ah may the gods preserve it from the woodcutter's axe
03:24Cezanne and his friends were very well versed in the classics so they had a very deep understanding of
03:30Arcadian literature the way that Virgil and other writers created an Arcadian world a perfect world
03:38and when they looked at the beautiful countryside around Exxon-Provence the unspoiled countryside as it was at
03:44that time they saw themselves in a sense living in a modern Arcadia
04:00Emile Zola left Exxon-Provence for Paris in 1858 at age 18 but the excitement of the capital
04:07could not dim the fond memories of his childhood home
04:11Paris is big full of amusements of charming women X is small monotonous petty also full of women
04:20god forbid i should slander the women of Exx and in spite of that i prefer Exx to Paris
04:29is it because of the trees swaying in the breeze because of the wild gorges the rocks
04:35spied high on top of each other is it the landscape of Provence which draws me there
04:44i do not know yet my part's dreams tell me that a rough rock is worth more than a freshly whitewashed house
04:53the murmur of the waters is more than that of a big town virgin nature more than nature starched and tormented
05:02and yet Paris was the only place to be for an ambitious young writer or painter
05:15Zola wrote to Cezanne
05:17Paris offers you an advantage which you could find nowhere else
05:23from six in the morning until eleven o'clock you could paint from a living model in an art
05:28school studio then take your lunch and from twelve until four in the afternoon you could copy a
05:33masterwork which attracts you in the louvre or in the luxembourg museum that would mean nine working
05:39hours i believe that is sufficient
05:48but Cezanne had obligations his father had worked hard to become a successful banker
05:53he wanted his son to play it safe to enroll in law school
06:01alas i've taken the torture's path of law
06:04taken is not the word i was forced to take it
06:08the law the horrid law will make my life miserable for three years
06:12the law the horrid law will make my life miserable for three years
06:20Cezanne longed to study art in paris but even in his youth he knew that it would never replace home
06:27he wanted to be an original an artist of unique vision
06:31emile zola agreed my dear Cezanne i approve completely of your idea of coming to paris to
06:40work and then returning to provence i believe that this is a way to escape from the influence of the
06:46schools and to develop some originality if one has any
06:52when Cezanne's father reluctantly gave in to his son's dreams paul immediately left for paris arriving in
06:591861
07:07i have seen the luxembourg and versailles and the louvre
07:14living on a small allowance from his father
07:16Cezanne took classes and copied the work of the masters
07:20but struggled and was his own worst critic
07:23emile zola wrote
07:26sometimes so you tell me you throw your brushes at the ceiling when your results do not come up to
07:31your ideas why this discouragement this impatience
07:36i must confess my heart is not very gay
07:40i fritter away my petty existence to the right and to left
07:43i have not been able to touch my painting
07:50to prove something to Cezanne would be like trying to persuade the towers of notre dame to dance a quadrille
07:57nothing can bend him nothing can wring a concession from him
08:00otherwise he remains the best fellow in the world
08:07he was a young provincial artist with a heavy provencal accent and he fell in with the circle
08:14around edward manet manny was a very sophisticated totally parisian artist and the artists who worked
08:22around him were similar very high bourgeois confident sophisticated parisians and Cezanne came there and really felt the country bumpkin
08:38as for me old man my hair and my beard are longer than my talent
08:43rather than try to emulate them he played up the role of the rebel artist the rough country type
08:54there's a famous story where he met manet for the first time and manet put out his hand to shake
09:01Cezanne's hand and Cezanne said oh no please don't shake my hand i haven't washed for a week
09:07that was his whole goal to make a point of being a provencal someone from an entirely different culture
09:17that's why he spoke provencal all around paris he wore his provencal outfit you know he had
09:24a red belt wrapped around his waist that was part of the traditional provencal dress
09:30like other ambitious artists of his time Cezanne submitted his work to the all-powerful government
09:40sanctioned exhibition called simply the salon each year an elite jury sat in judgment with the power
09:47to make or break a career rewarding technical skill over artistic innovation they rejected anything that
09:55threatened the status quo the impressionist and indeed Cezanne himself had a somewhat ambivalent
10:02attitude to this world Cezanne actually always wanted to be accepted at the salon but he realized
10:09that he wasn't going to be so he took the contrary route and actually did provocative paintings that he knew
10:16would be rejected
10:17on saturday we're going to the Champs-Elysées to bring our canvases which will make the institute
10:28blush with rage and despair
10:33in 1866 Cezanne sent his portrait of Anthony Vallabreg who was a poet and a friend of his from
10:38ex-provence to the salon
10:40he knows it will be rejected so that's also a way of getting publicity i mean in a way it was a
10:49a self-promotion to be seen to be thwarting the authorities
10:57as was expected paul has been refused by the salon jury so have all the others they have gone back to work
11:04although working among the impressionists Cezanne managed to stand apart from them striving to make
11:12a unique contribution to the form not an easy thing to do when there's so much competition around in
11:19paris in the 1860s and 70s his work done in paris in the 1860s is dark dramatic
11:28often very thick often very thickly and awkwardly painted and i think this was a deliberate provocation
11:36to his contemporaries to show that he was a rough tough finchel artist laying on the paint by the trowel load
11:45he painted in a very bold thick way which was later called couillard or ballsy meaning that
12:00it's kind of very strong and expressive and exaggerated
12:03we think of the impressionist money money and renoir among others as being rebels themselves but
12:20essentially this is a little bit of a romanticized view they were courting both the establishment and
12:27the the rebellious avant-garde now Cezanne was one step further than them in rebelliousness
12:37the others courbet manet money etc feel and see as i do but they have no courage they paint pictures
12:46for the salon i however dare i dare i have the courage of my convictions and he who laughs last
12:56best he develops more and more in the original direction which is nature prescribes for him
13:05i have great hopes traveling back and forth between paris and x
13:12cezanne practiced his craft and searched for his own style
13:16he used his family in x as models including his sister playing the piano
13:32a mutual friend wrote
13:36my dear zola when cezanne returns to paris you will see some pictures that you will like very much
13:43among others a portrait of his father in a big armchair which looks very good
13:49the painting is light in color and the attitude very fine
14:00cezanne's feelings for his father even in the 1860s come out strongly in the great portrait
14:06where he's shown reading the newspaper les venements it shows him as a very imposing figure but also it's a
14:13portrait done with great care and affection
14:18in fact the way that cezanne throughout his life
14:23laid such an important emphasis on work on hard work is almost an attempt to prove to his father that
14:31becoming an artist in paris or wherever was not just becoming a bohemian and sitting around and smoking
14:37drugs and hanging out with models but actually was serious solid intellectual and physical work
14:43in 1869 the painter met a parisian model hortense fiquet she became his lover his lifelong companion and the mother of his child
15:03my sense is that she was a commanding and strong-willed woman which would be a good match for cezanne likewise a commanding strong-willed man and she held the household he
15:17was the artist
15:32but cezanne kept his family hidden from his father for more than a decade
15:37which is strange indeed because cezanne's own parents were in fact from quite humble origins
15:44and they only married themselves after cezanne and his sisters were born his mother was the typical
15:50wife and mother of a provincial household self-effacing always out to support her children
16:00his mother knew about his relationship his mother knew about the son her grandchild so she was in the secret
16:13china
16:21beginning in late 1860s shadowstone's work was profoundly affected by his close friendship with
16:26the impressionist camille pisa
16:32pisa was a kind of paternal figure for says and in many ways replacing
16:38the father figure that he always wished to have and didn't find in his own father.
16:44And what Pizarro taught him, and in the broader sense what he learned from Impressionism,
16:49was to work out of doors, to experience nature at first hand,
16:54and to paint nature with a broad, free, brushy technique.
17:08While residing in Paris, CĂ©zanne spent each summer in Aix-en-Provence, applying the lessons
17:17of Pizarro and the Impressionists to his own native landscape.
17:24All pictures painted inside in the studio will never be as good as those done outside.
17:30When out-of-door scenes are represented, the contrast between the figures and the ground
17:36is outstanding and the landscape is magnificent.
17:40I shall have to make up my mind only to do things out of doors.
17:56When France declared war on Prussia in 1870, CĂ©zanne left Paris and settled in the village
18:02of Lestac on the Mediterranean coast.
18:07Just 18 miles from Aix-en-Provence, he'd offered a new and inspiring landscape.
18:13It also kept him safe from the conscription officer
18:16and kept his family secret from the prying eyes of his father.
18:25His studies of the sea at Lestac led to a gradual lightening of his palette
18:29and to a new way of capturing light on canvas.
18:36My dear Emile, I shall not return to Paris before next year.
18:40I have rented a little house and garden at Lestac, just above the station and at the foot of the hill,
18:47where behind me rise the rocks and the pines.
18:49I am still busy painting, as you say, there are some very beautiful views here.
19:04The difficulty is to reproduce them.
19:07I began to see nature rather late, though this does not prevent it being full of interest for me.
19:13CĂ©zanne's art develops as a way of rejecting Paris and taking on Provence as his one and only context,
19:32while at the same time trying to apply to Provence what he learned from Paris.
19:36He wrote back to his friend Pissarro in Paris that for the first time he understood what the Impressionists meant
19:43by using patches of colour as opposed to modelling in tone.
19:52CĂ©zanne actually draws very little under his oil paintings,
19:58very faintly, just to put things in place and then essentially the work is being done with a colour.
20:06The traditional academic way of painting was to model a form gradually from light to dark or vice versa.
20:19What the Impressionists introduced was a way of painting where juxtaposing coloured brush marks,
20:25patches of colour, which would serve to model a form.
20:36CĂ©zanne's art is a way of painting, which is a way of painting, which is a way of painting,
20:39which is a way of painting, which is a way of painting, which is a way of painting, which is a way of painting.
20:41I have started two little motifs with the sea.
20:43It's like a playing card, red roofs over the blue sea.
20:47The sun here is so tremendous that it seems to me as if objects are silhouetted not only in black and white,
20:54but in blue, red, brown and violet.
20:57I may be mistaken, but this seems to me to be the opposite of modelling.
21:15In 1874, Claude Monet organized an independent exhibition entirely free of the Salon's rigid ideals.
21:24It included paintings by names now recognized among the most famous in the history of art.
21:29Degas, Renoir, and CĂ©zanne.
21:36The exhibit was both popular and controversial.
21:39One critic singled out CĂ©zanne for special mention, describing him as
21:44a sort of idiot who paints in the throes of delirium tremens.
21:47CĂ©zanne continued to associate himself with his Impressionist colleagues, but he also kept apart
21:58from them, sometimes abstaining from their exhibitions and soon moving beyond them in style and content.
22:08We must not be satisfied with retaining the beautiful formulas of our illustrious predecessors.
22:15Let us go forth to study nature. Let us try to free our minds from them.
22:20Let us strive to express ourselves according to our personal temperament.
22:24The way he took one phase of modern art and transformed into something entirely different,
22:36Impressionism into an art of greater expression and abstraction, is wonderful.
22:42It's his way of calling himself a link.
22:49CĂ©zanne once famously remarked that he wanted to make the art of Impressionism
22:55something solid and serious like the art of the museums.
22:59He wanted to reconcile the immediacy of Impressionist painting with the more solid,
23:07meaningful compositions of the old masters he admired.
23:13I am beginning to consider myself stronger than all those around me.
23:17And you know that good opinion I have of myself has only been reached after serious consideration.
23:23I have to work all the time. I must strive after perfection only for the satisfaction of becoming truer and wiser.
23:31Maybe his greatest goal was to try to put into permanent artistic form
23:41his feeling of engagement with the world, his sense of being in the world.
23:46If you like his existential experience as a man and an artist to somehow capture that in paint.
23:52To render as he said very often a harmony parallel to nature.
24:09A wonderful example of his harmony parallel to nature would be the great late watercolor which he made
24:16from the terrace of his studio at Les Louves. Looking across the city of Aix-en-Provence where you see the
24:22tower of the cathedral and the mountains beyond. And it's a great watercolor in the way in which he
24:28lays these wonderful color washes one on top of the other in a very rhythmic way across a sheet of paper.
24:35It has its own internal logic, its own internal harmony parallel to the divine harmony as he would say in nature.
24:52When you listen to music, you don't know how to write notes or things like that. It's just your hair and you feel well or not well.
25:06And it's the same with the painting but it's with your eyes. And when you read a poem it's the same thing.
25:12You have emotion. And that's what the painter tried to give you.
25:20As Cezanne moved into middle age, he anchored himself in his beloved Provence.
25:36His focus on its unique landscape helped him to grow in new directions.
25:40He made his own way and helped set the standard for those who would follow.
25:55I still see before me the powerful landscapes of my youth.
25:59I feel so strongly that I belong to them, that what little love and truth there is in me comes from their tranquil passion.
26:06The family home near Aix, called the Jard de Bouffon, is a family home near Aix, called the Jard de Bouffon.
26:36The Jard de Bouffon was an especially resonant subject. Acquired by Cezanne's father in 1859, it came to embody their complex relationship.
26:49Though disappointed with his son's chosen profession, Cezanne's father also showed his support, building a studio on the top floor
26:57and allowing his son to paint life-size murals in the main salon.
27:01The Jard de Bouffon gave Cezanne somewhere that was private, a kind of almost a secret studio, both in the house and then in the grounds, a kind of outdoor studio, where he could work uninterrupted, unobserved and develop his art.
27:15Cezanne
27:18both in the house and then in the grounds, a kind of outdoor studio where he could work uninterrupted, unobserved and develop his art.
27:27Cezanne executed his first open-air paintings in the grounds of the Jard de Buffon.
27:57Ultimately, painting the view of the Montagne Saint-Victoire, seen through a screen of trees.
28:21Cezanne painted the Montagne Saint-Victoire like no one else. First of all, it was just there.
28:40When you're in Exxon-Provence, when you take a trip out of town, it dominates the surrounding landscape.
28:46As mountains go, it's not a very tall mountain. It's something like 4,000 feet.
28:51So compared with the Rockies or the Alps, it's not a big mountain.
28:54But it has a tremendous presence in the local landscape because everything around it is pretty flat.
29:00My dear Emile, when I went to Marseille, a stunning motif appears on the east side.
29:12Saint-Victoire and the rocks that dominate.
29:15It's quite possible that Paul Cezanne was painting right at this very spot 100 years ago.
29:34He painted nine major oil paintings from this spot and a number of watercolours.
29:39So we could say it really was one of his obsessive motifs.
29:50Montagne Saint-Victoire held both a philosophical and ascetic fascination for Cezanne.
29:56He understood that it was ancient.
29:59His friend Marion had discovered prehistoric remains there.
30:06It had been a religious symbol in pre-Roman times.
30:12And it had tremendous personal associations for him.
30:16It was a place where Zola and their other friends had explored during their carefree youth.
30:22It presided over the landscape that he had loved so much as a child.
30:36He loved the changing light.
30:42The changing colours.
30:43And expressed it in the whole series of nearly a dozen paintings.
30:50All taken from the same point of view.
30:52I am still striving to discover my way as a painter.
31:07Nature presents me with the greatest difficulties.
31:13Cezanne deeply loved the quarry at Bibimus.
31:30It's a place where he could almost literally penetrate the landscape of his native Provence.
31:36He went down deep into the quarry underground.
31:46And there he loved the silence and the solitude.
31:49And the escape from the world around him.
31:59Also I think he was attracted by the way the rocks had been cut.
32:03By the striations of the chisels that we can still see today.
32:07Or something that I think appealed to his aesthetic sensibility.
32:10And found a kind of correspondence in his own brushwork.
32:14Cezanne rambled all over this countryside looking for just the right motif in his landscape painting.
32:26He visited the supposed house of the sculptor Pierre Puget.
32:31And clearly the historical association of that place was important to him.
32:48I think there's a good deal of self-identification on the part of the artist.
32:52With a lonely house set in woods or in rocky terrain.
33:04He loved the solitude of the back country behind Lestac.
33:08Where he painted the dramatic rocks.
33:13It has a kind of primeval feeling still.
33:16And I think Cezanne responded to that remoteness.
33:28Climbing the hills and the sun goes down.
33:31One has a glorious view of Marseille in the background.
33:34All enveloped towards evening to a very decorative effect.
33:44In 1886 after a decade of secrecy.
33:47Cezanne's father learned of Hortense.
33:50And of his grandson Paul Junior.
33:52All were reconciled.
33:54And Hortense and Cezanne were married.
33:56Just months before his father's death.
33:59But in that same year.
34:04Emile Zola published L'Ćuvre.
34:06A novel which featured a barely concealed and unflattering portrait of Cezanne.
34:11Zola wrote.
34:14He threw himself into the impossible task of putting all nature on one canvas.
34:19And exhausted himself without ever bringing forth the expected work of genius.
34:24It was the end of their friendship.
34:29In spite of his excellent nature and rich natural gifts.
34:34Paul cannot bear any criticism.
34:37However gentle it may be.
34:44It wasn't often that Cezanne could be drawn away from his home.
34:47But in 1894.
34:48Some of the leading artists of the time.
34:51Gathered at the home of Claude Monet.
34:53In Giverny.
34:56Monet wrote.
34:58I hope Cezanne will join us.
35:00But he is so strange and so shy of new faces.
35:02That I fear he will let us down.
35:04He is a true artist.
35:06But has far too many doubts about himself.
35:11Cezanne did attend.
35:13One female artist described him in vivid detail.
35:17When I first saw him.
35:18I thought he looked like a cut throat.
35:20With large eyeballs standing out from his head.
35:22In a most ferocious manner.
35:24A rather fierce looking pointed beard.
35:27And an excited way of talking.
35:29That positively made the dishes rattle.
35:32I found out later.
35:33That far from being fierce.
35:35Or a cut throat.
35:36He has the gentlest nature possible.
35:40He doesn't believe that everyone should see alike.
35:43In 1895.
35:44In 1895.
35:45Galerians.
35:46In 1895.
35:47Galerians.
35:48Galerians.
35:49My dear Monet.
35:50Here I am then.
35:51Landed again in the south.
35:53From which I should perhaps never have separated.
35:55In order to fling myself into the chimerical pursuit of art.
36:00To end.
36:01May I tell you how happy I was about the moral support received from you.
36:05Which served as a stimulus for my painting.
36:07In 1895.
36:08Gallery owner.
36:09Ambroise Vollard.
36:10Came across Cezanne's work at a Parisian art supply shop.
36:11Where artists traded canvases.
36:12For supplies.
36:13He was inspired.
36:14And a solo show was arranged.
36:15Dear Monsieur Vollard.
36:16I do not think that I shall in any way harm the course of my studies by exhibiting.
36:20The exhibition featured some 150 canvases.
36:21And promised the artist widespread public recognition.
36:22But Cezanne chose not to attend.
36:23The exhibition featured some 150 canvases.
36:25And promised the artist widespread public recognition.
36:27But Cezanne chose not to attend.
36:28Dr. Charles St.
36:31He both wanted recognition.
36:47He both wanted recognition but didn't want it.
36:52And he is in fact was quite upset when he read.
36:56was quite upset when he read some of the reviews of the show, even positive reviews, that his
37:03work was becoming known. It's very puzzling in a way, but he, I think, lived for his art
37:10and was in a way disdainful about his public success, yet at the same time it's hard to
37:17believe he didn't somehow enjoy that at the end of his life.
37:20He was like a monk, in fact. That's why he wanted to be alone, free and alone, and he
37:28didn't like to have someone around him when he was, when he painted.
37:35Visitors arrived in Aix, seeking the man whose paintings had inspired a new vision of what
37:40art might achieve. But the reclusive CĂ©zanne was not pleased.
37:48I thought that one could do good painting without attracting attention to one's private
37:53life. Certainly an artist wishes to raise himself intellectually as much as possible, but the
37:59man must remain obscure. The pleasure must be found in the work.
38:03Gauguin met him and wrote very interestingly about that meeting, and how CĂ©zanne was almost
38:11like an ancient shepherd from prehistoric times, sitting on top of a mountain contemplating nature
38:19and the stars. So he saw him as a philosopher.
38:23In 1899, the Jace de Beaufort had to be sold after CĂ©zanne's mother's death, and at that
38:39point one of his friends made a final visit to the house with CĂ©zanne, and he described
38:44CĂ©zanne breaking down in tears in front of the portrait of his father in the house. He
38:49was so moved and upset by the selling of the house, partly because it was so deeply associated
38:56with his father, with whom he had very affectionate memories.
39:12After the sale of the Jace de Beaufort, CĂ©zanne bought an apartment in Aix, on the Rue Beauligan.
39:18He built a studio on the top floor, with a north-facing window for the best light.
39:30He lived there for several years, but the space was small and cramped, and he felt the need
39:36to have a larger studio.
39:40Dear Monsieur Vollard, I have had a studio built on a small plot of land that I bought
39:45for that purpose. I shall inform you of the results achieved as soon as I have obtained
39:50some satisfaction from my efforts.
39:54This is the Atelier des Louvres, the studio which CĂ©zanne built at the very end of his
39:59life in 1902, and where he worked principally for the last four years until his death in
40:04October 1906.
40:07He built it for two main reasons. One was that he needed isolation to work successfully.
40:13The town was noisy and busy, he had too many visitors coming to his studio, and he didn't
40:19like people prying when he was at work.
40:29The second reason was that he had begun at the end of his life to paint some monumental
40:33canvases, mainly devoted to the female nude, and he needed a very large space in which to
40:38paint them, and this room fitted the bill.
40:50This is a big theme for CĂ©zanne, his relationship to the female body, to females, and to the nude.
40:57He applies to them the kind of distortive qualities that he applies to everything,
41:03to bottles, to houses, to trees, to apples.
41:09It's all part of that deliberate awkwardness, that primitivizing quality that he wants to
41:22establish as an aesthetic value, which he also sees as being an aesthetic value of the provincial
41:31countryside.
41:39He modified the more naturalist way of looking at nature, which was the Impressionist way,
41:48in a more abstracted, more stylized way, which had very many similarities with popular culture.
42:03The studio was constructed with this very large north window.
42:07CĂ©zanne, like most painters, liked the cool, clear northern light when he was working, and
42:13there are also drapes there so that he could adjust the intensity of light, because the light here in
42:18Provence can be very, very bright indeed.
42:20And then also behind me you see a special tall, narrow doorway, a kind of slot, which he had built in
42:26again especially, so that he could roll the very large canvases in and out of the studio.
42:37The studio remains much as CĂ©zanne left it.
42:40Many of the objects were here during his lifetime, including the big ladder which he used to paint
42:47the top part of the very large paintings.
42:58Bowls of fruit were designed to evoke the atmosphere of his studio.
43:02A small plaster Cupid, which in his lifetime was attributed to the Provençal artist Pierre Pouget, whom he greatly admired.
43:23We also see his painting boxes which he took out into the countryside when he went plein air painting.
43:35The man of letters expresses himself in abstractions, whereas a painter, by means of drawing and colour,
43:41gives concrete form to his sensations and perceptions.
43:56Get to the heart of what is before you.
43:59The long years of hard work had brought him to the very position he had sought from the beginning.
44:14His work was forever linked to the landscape, but it never stopped evolving.
44:19Within the views he painted of the mountain from Nirlet Louvre between 1902 and his death in 1906,
44:29there was quite a variety of style.
44:31I think it depended on the quality of light at the time, the effects of colour and light that he saw in the landscape,
44:44and was trying to match in his paintings.
44:48the vedicaca song and morgue
45:01from NIRRWIN
45:03We need to take into consideration, too, that Cezanne's eyesight may have been failing towards the end of his life.
45:22This is perhaps a rather controversial point of view, but we shouldn't forget that he had been suffering from diabetes since 1890.
45:33A remarkable example of his late abstraction is the painting taken from the terrace of the studio Adelaide Louvre, looking across Exxon Provence.
45:51And there we see broad areas, broad patches of colour, which are really abstract.
45:58At first it's hard to determine what you're looking at.
46:03I think he couldn't see clearly, but he was responding to these colour sensations he was receiving from the sky and the landscape itself.
46:15Now, being old nearly seventy years, the sensations of colour, which give the light, are for me the reason for the abstractions, which do not allow me to cover my canvas entirely, nor to pursue the delineation of the objects where their points of contact are fine and delicate.
46:43On the other hand, the planes fall one on top of the other.
46:50Nature, if consulted, gives us the means of attaining the end.
46:59When CĂ©zanne heard of Zola's death in 1902, he broke into tears and locked himself away.
47:15The sense of frustration he had often shared with his old friend had never lessened.
47:22My age and health will never allow me to realise my dream of art, which I have been pursuing all my life.
47:30To my mind, one does not put oneself in place of the past. One only adds a new link.
47:37He was looking for something that always seemed to be beyond what he had created.
47:46In some ways, it's that he never recognised the value of his works.
47:52The ageing artist was also unhappy with the changes wrought in his beloved landscapes.
48:07I remember perfectly the once so picturesque coast of Lestac.
48:12Unfortunately, what is called progress is nothing but the invasion of bipeds,
48:17who will not rest until they have transformed everything into hideous caves with gas lamps.
48:23And what is even worse, with electric lights? What times we live in?
48:38He wrote often to his son Paul.
48:42My dear Paul, in order to give you news as satisfactory as you would like,
48:49I would need to be twenty years younger.
48:52I eat well, and a little moral satisfaction would do me a lot of good.
48:56But work alone can give me that.
49:08I am waiting for four o'clock.
49:10The carriage will take me to the river by the bridge of the Trois Sautés.
49:13I felt very well there yesterday. I started a watercolour.
49:21I am going up to the studio. I get up late this morning.
49:24I am going up to the studio.
49:48I get up late this morning, after 5 o'clock.
49:51My dear Paul, I have nothing to do but paint.
49:56CĂ©zanne was already moving into a mood of greater distance and bitterness from the artistic
50:04world of his time, especially the world of artistic trade, of galleries, exhibitions.
50:11In fact he wasn't interested in showing anymore.
50:13What absorbed him by then was entirely problems that had to do with his painting.
50:18How do you handle volume, how do you handle perspective, how do you handle nature, how
50:23do you handle tradition.
50:25The sense you get is one of consistent search in CĂ©zanne.
50:33The skulls became a very significant motif for CĂ©zanne at the end of his life.
50:37He was very conscious of his own mortality.
50:44CĂ©zanne also painted a very moving series of portraits of his gardener, Monsieur Vallier,
51:03who looked after the garden and helped CĂ©zanne move the large campuses in and out of the studio.
51:08The portraits of Vallier are very moving, very Rembrandt-esque.
51:24They're extremely thickly painted, emphasizing the old man's rugged features and gnarled hands.
51:30And I think that CĂ©zanne saw in this old man a kind of premonition of his own old age and his impending death.
51:39I am in such a state of mental disturbance, I fear at moments that my frail reason may give way.
51:52Will I ever attain the end for which I have striven so much and so long?
51:57I hope so.
51:59But I am old, ill, and I have sworn to myself to die painting.
52:04In mid-October 1906, CĂ©zanne was caught in a storm in this very neighborhood.
52:12He collapsed in the rain.
52:14A passing laundry man put him on his cart, trundled him back to the Rue Boulegon in town.
52:22CĂ©zanne's final words are unknown, but his last letter was true to form.
52:27It was to his art supplier.
52:33Monsieur, it is now eight days since I asked you to send me Ten Burnt Lakes No. 7, and I have had no reply.
52:41Whatever is the matter?
52:43An answer, and quick, please.
52:45Accept, Monsieur, my distinguished greetings.
52:48Paul CĂ©zanne.
52:50An independent man, an artist proud to call himself provincial.
52:59A painter who paved the way for Cubism and the inspiring work of the 20th century.
53:08Paul CĂ©zanne was, above all, a local, a native, a Provencal.
53:15I have asked myself whether the short time given us would be better used in an attempt to understand the whole of the universe,
53:26or to assimilate what is within our reach.
53:30On October the 20th, 1906, the painter's sister, Marie, wrote to his son.
53:39Your father has been ill since Monday.
53:43He remained outside in the rain for several hours.
53:46He was brought back in a laundry cart, and two men had to carry him up to his bed.
53:51Early in the morning, he went into the garden to work on a portrait of Vallier.
53:56He came back dying.
53:58Three days later, on October the 23rd, 1906, Paul CĂ©zanne died.
54:15Even now, a century later, young artists pay homage to him and to his indelible influence on the course of modern art.
54:34We must not be satisfied with retaining the beautiful formulas of our illustrious predecessors.
54:49Let us go forth to study nature.
54:52Let us try to free our minds.
54:55Let us strive to express ourselves according to our personal temperament.
55:01Paul CĂ©zanne.
55:07To learn more about the life and work of Paul CĂ©zanne, visit the CĂ©zanne in Provence website on pbs.org.
55:16CĂ©zanne in Provence is available on videocassette or DVD.
55:20The companion book is also available.
55:23To order, call PBS Home Video at 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
55:31The following book is available on videocassette.
55:34www.pbs.gov.au.
55:35The connection book is available on videocassette,