Ok! I've read it and I'm now waiting for the enlightenment to set-in.....but so far it hasn't. These little DK books are really good. I like the way that they have colour-coded them into sections: in this case into 1. Life and Works, 2. Background.....which includes contemporary events and painters, 3. Masterpieces....usually by Cezanne but sometimes including other artists. I feel that I've been given a fairly good overview of the man and his art and life .....maybe short on detail but for the size of the book it's still quite good. And the illustrations are great. I especially like the way that the Masterpieces are broken down with enlargements of various sections and a detailed commentary. Though must say I find it slightly odd (annoying) where ...as on p 114/115.... we get a comment like "the detail of the spoon handle is used by the artist to force the whole painting to submit to his desire for "verticalisation"'. Maybe that's correct but in the absence of written evidence about "his desire for verticalisation" I find it a bit presumptuous of the writer. The same sort of thing happens throughout where all sorts of intentions are attributed to the painter.
What about the work itself? Well, still life work tends to leave me a bit cold and I'm not overly excited by hundreds of still lives of apples and pears...no matter how the pigment has been daubed on ...with a "furious impasto of vermilion, yellow, green and blue" p73. I guess it is possible to see in Cezanne's work the doorway being opened to the impressionists and, I guess that is no mean achievement and he seemed to remain true to his own views of art. It's not that he couldn't draw realistically...his drawing of a male nude at the Aix Art school in 1862 demonstrates his abilities in this respect. I found it interesting that his friend since childhood ..Zola ...considered him to be an "aborted genius" never realising his potential ....and his father found it hard to come to grips with his son who constantly needed financial support. I wonder, whether he became financially secure before his death through his paintings? He certainly inherited wealth through his father but was his work being purchased in his own time sufficiently to support him? We are not told but from about 1895 to his death in 1906 he seems to have been increasingly appreciated by other artists ....at least by the artists. Quite a nice book. I give it 4 stars. ( )