Cezanne's 172nd B'day :D

It's Cezanne's 172nd birthday!
......or at least it was 2 days ago.

Paul Cezanne is a French Post Impressionist painter, whose artworks and unique ideas were played a major part in the aesthetic development of many 20th-century artists and art movements, especially Cubism. Unfortunately, Cézanne's art was misunderstood and discredited by the traditional public during a large part of his life. His works were adaptations of the Impressionist movement, which eventually challenged all the conventional values of realistic painting in those days. Cezanne's art emphasized on the artist's personal expression on the subject matter and on the integrity of the painting itself, instead of blindly painting according to reality.

In this painting of Mont Sainte Victoire, for example, shows much influence from the Impressionist movement. The colors of paint are not blended together at all, as a typical traditional work ought to be. Instead, paint is applied in blocks of pure colors to be merged by the viewer's eyes at a distance.

Well, it's accepted by the public now (in fact the original work will sell for millions or even billions!), but in his time, it was considered wrong and incorrect. It appeared sketchy to many; no well blended paint strokes, no realistic depiction of the subject matter. It was nothing like the Romantic or the Neoclassical works that the artistic world was so used to.

So much of his fame only came after his death.
I guess that's the life of artists, and the money goes to art museums and investors. That's probably why many parents discourage their children in taking up artistic careers. But if you're very interested and passionate in art, then I suppose one should pursue it, and one would find many wonders and joy ahead in life
:)