Paul Cézanne Quotes

64 Sourced Quotes

Listen, monsieur Vollard, I worked a lot out of doors at Estaque. Except for that there was no other event of importance in my life during the years 1870-71. I divided my time between the field and the studio.... Zola closed his letter by urging me to come back to Paris too [in 1872 Cézanne went back to Paris].... but all the same, something told me to go back to Paris. It was too long since I had seen the Louvre. But understand, Monsieur Vollard, I was working at that time on a landscape which was not going well. So I stayed at Aix (Aix en Provence) a little while longer to study on my canvas.

Paul Cézanne
The Night-watch [large and famous painting of Dutch 17th century painter Rembrandt]... the grandiose - I don't say it in bad part - grows tiresome after a while. There are mountains like that; when you stand before them you shout Nom de Dieu, but for every day a simple little hill does well enough. Listen Monsieur Vollard, if the 'Raft of the Medusa' hung in my bedroom, it would make me sick.

Paul Cézanne
I've ripped it to pieces; your portrait, you know. I tried to work on it this morning, but it went from bad to worse, so I destroyed it...

Paul Cézanne
Here you are, put this somewhere, on your work table. You must always have this before your eyes... It's a new order of painting. Our Renaissance starts here... There's a pictorial truth in things. This rose and this white lead us to it by a path hitherto unknown to our sensibility..

Paul Cézanne