Paul Cezanne Paintings

About Paul Cezanne

Paul Cezanne, or Paul Cézanne in French, was a French Post-Impressionist painter who lived from 1839 to 1906. His work introduced new modes of representation, influenced the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, and formed the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and the Cubism that followed it. That is the short version of why a plate of apples matters in the history of modern art: the objects on the table stopped obeying nature and started obeying the picture.

The Basket of Apples, which he made around 1893, is the clearest case. It rejected naturalistic representation in favor of distorting objects to create multiple perspectives, and that approach fed Fauvism and Cubism in the years after him. The same reasoning runs through the rest of his subjects, which this collection sorts into three groups: the still lifes of the table, the landscapes of Aix-en-Provence and of L'Estaque in the south of France, and the bathers and figures. The style is geometric, built on cylinders, spheres and cones, with bold complementary color, thick flat surfaces, expressive brushstrokes, and a perspectival space distorted on purpose so that more than one viewpoint fits in one canvas.

Series and periods

Cezanne repeated a small set of subjects for thirty years, so this collection reads best by group rather than by date. The same table, the same country road and the same sitters come back in version after version, which is also why several titles here look almost alike.

• Still lifes of the table: the group he is known for, a pitcher and a cloth on a table, with the perspective bent to hold several viewpoints at once. The heavy curtain of the late work turns up here as well, and the plain white napkin is folded into planes, built like architecture rather than draped like cloth. Titles here: Still Life with Water Jug, Still Life, Bottle of Rum, Still Life, Pitcher and Fruit, Still Life with Curtain and Flowered Pitcher.
• The card game: a series of five oil paintings from his final period, in the early 1890s, the versions varying in size, in the number of players and in the setting of the game. He also made numerous drawings and studies in preparation for it. Titles here: The Card Players.
• Skulls and the late still life: the darker end of the same table, where the objects are bone instead of food, and the geometry is built like the rest. Titles here: Pyramid of Skulls, The Three Skulls.
• Landscapes of Aix-en-Provence and L'Estaque: the country he painted at home in the south of France, roads, roofs and trees rather than views. Two of the titles below are the same bend in the road taken twice, which is how he worked: the motif first, the weather second. Titles here: House with Red Roof, Blue Landscape, Bend in Forest Road, The Bend in the Road, Jourdan's Cottage.
• Portraits and figures: the sitters he had close at hand, given the same geometry as the still life. Titles here: Woman in Blue, Madame Cezanne, Victor Chocquet, Portrait of the Gardener Vallier.
• Flowers: the vases, the one part of the still life that was alive when he started, and the closest this painter comes to a soft subject. Titles here: Vase of Flowers, Still Life with Flower Holder.

Most famous works

These are the Paul Cezanne titles people ask for most here, ordered by the traffic each one draws and by what actually sells. Each title opens its own page, where you choose the size and decide on a frame. Every one is new work in oil, painted after Cezanne to order, and no two hands read a brushstroke the same way.

• Still Life with Apples and a Pot of Primroses: the most visited page in this collection, the fruit on a cloth with a pot of primroses behind it
• The Card Players: the title covers a series of five oils from his final period in the early 1890s, and the versions differ in size, in how many players sit at the table and in the room the game happens in. Drawings and studies came first, and this is one of two Cezanne titles on our list of the 100 most famous
• Basket of Apples: a still life in oil made around 1893, which threw out naturalistic representation and distorted the objects so that several viewpoints hold at once, a move that later fed Fauvism and Cubism. The original hangs in a museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, as part of the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection
• Pyramid of Skulls: skulls stacked on a table, the still life stripped of anything pleasant
• Still Life with Water Jug: a jug, a plate and cloth, the surfaces built thick and flat
• Still Life, Bottle of Rum: a bottle on the table, the label reduced to a few strokes
• Still Life, Pitcher and Fruit: the pitcher he returned to over and over, with the plate at its foot
• Fruit Bowl, Pitcher and Fruit: three objects and a table edge, arranged so that no single point of view explains them
• Apples and Oranges: two colors on white cloth, doing all of the work between them
• Victor Chocquet: a portrait of the collector Victor Chocquet, seated
• The Three Skulls: three skulls on a patterned cloth, a companion to the pyramid
• House with Red Roof: a house among trees in Provence, the red roof holding the picture together
• Still Life with Apples and Fruit Bowl: a bowl and the same round forms, one of the many versions of that arrangement
• Four Apples: four pieces on a bare surface, the smallest form the subject takes
• Woman in Blue, Madame Cezanne: a seated portrait of Madame Cezanne in a blue dress
• Bend in Forest Road: a road turning into woods, trees built as volumes rather than outlines
• Portrait of the Gardener Vallier: the gardener Vallier, one of the sitters of his last years, treated with the same geometry as a pitcher
• Table, Napkin and Fruit: a napkin folded into stiff planes with the plate resting on it
• Jourdan's Cottage: a cottage in the country around Aix-en-Provence, from the late landscapes of his own south of France
• Apples on a Sheet: the same round forms on white linen, a study behind the bigger still life

Browse by subject

Cezanne's subjects run through other collections of ours, and each one is a different door into the same painter.

• Still life paintings: 2,329 works, the picture of mostly inanimate subject matter, the commonplace objects of a table or a studio, either natural or human-made. This is where most of Cezanne belongs, the table, the fruit, the pitchers, the bottles and the skulls, from Four Apples to the Basket of Apples.
• Landscape paintings: 8,004 canvases, the genre in which the main subject is a wide view of natural scenery, mountains, valleys, rivers, trees and forests, with sky almost always in the view and weather often an element of the composition. Aix-en-Provence and L'Estaque, the roads, the roofs and the trees of the south of France.
• Post-Impressionism: 2,226 titles, the mainly French movement that ran from the last Impressionist exhibition in 1886 to the birth of Fauvism around 1905, a reaction against the Impressionist concern with the naturalistic depiction of light and color, with Cezanne, Gauguin, van Gogh and Seurat as its principal artists. Cezanne is named first among its four principal artists, which is how art history files him.
• Portrait paintings: 8,463 pieces, the genre whose intent is to represent a specific human subject, worked on commission for public and private persons or out of admiration for the sitter, and long kept as a state and family record. Madame Cezanne, Victor Chocquet and the gardener Vallier.
• Impressionism: 6,138 paintings, the 19th-century art movement marked by visible brush strokes, open composition, ordinary subject matter, unusual visual angles and the accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities, which came out of a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s. The movement his own style grew out of and then left behind, and the independent exhibitions its painters held in Paris.
• The 100 most famous paintings of all time: 2 canvases by Cezanne sit on this list, our reading of the best known paintings in art history, both of them from the early 1890s.

The full list of painters we reproduce in oil is on the artist index.

How each reproduction is painted

Nothing here is stock. When you order, an artist paints that title in oil on canvas in the size you picked, layer by layer, and you see a photograph of the finished painting and approve it before it leaves the studio. Our artists each have 15 or more years at the easel and work from the public-domain original, and revisions are free. Seven sizes are available and the frame is optional, so the same picture can be a small study by a desk or the one thing on a wall. Shipping is free worldwide and returns stay open for 90 days.

Frequently asked questions

What did Paul Cezanne paint?

Three things, mostly. The still lifes of the table, the landscapes of Aix-en-Provence and L'Estaque, and the bathers and figures, with portraits of the people near him alongside. The still life is the largest group in this collection.

Why is Cezanne called a bridge to modern art?

Because his work introduced new modes of representation and influenced the avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, standing between late 19th-century Impressionism and early Cubism. The Basket of Apples shows the method: naturalistic representation dropped, objects distorted, several viewpoints in one canvas.

How many versions of the card game did Cezanne paint?

Five oils, made in his final period in the early 1890s. They vary in size, in the number of players at the table and in the setting of the game, and he made numerous drawings and studies before them.

Where is the original Basket of Apples?

In Chicago. It belongs to the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, which is the practical reason hand-painted reproductions exist at all.

How many Cezanne paintings can I order here?

380 titles, the still lifes, the landscapes, the portraits and the skulls included. Each one is painted in oil when you order it, in the size you choose, over the weeks that kind of work takes. If you want the most repeated motif in the collection, it is the table with round fruit on a white cloth.

Are these original Paul Cezanne paintings?

No. Each one is a new painting, made by hand in oil on canvas after Cezanne's composition. It is a reproduction, not a print, and not the original canvas.

What sizes and frames can I order?

Every Cezanne reproduction here comes in seven sizes, with an optional frame. You see a photo of the finished oil painting and approve it before it ships, worldwide shipping is free, and returns stay open for 90 days.