Cezanne, for he is the father of us all.

There are many links to show Cezanne’s inspiration in both Picasso and Braque’s work. The purpose of Cezanne’s work was to abandon the verisimilitude of traditional artwork. To do this, Cezanne used many different techniques, including simplified and geometric forms, de-saturated colours, merge the different grounds of the painting and thick brush strokes.

The simplified and geometric forms in Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’Avingnon, 1907, can be linked to images like Bathers, which Cezanne painted between 1883 and 1885. The very round geometric shapes like the ovular rump cheeks on the two women furthest to the left in Bathers, have been repeated on Picasso’s figure in the bottom right in Les Demoiselles D’Avingnon. When seen in profile, the standing central figures in both Bathers and Les Demoiselles appear to have exaggerated curves which are very ovular, which looks very accurate, but there is a loss of detail, realism or verisimilitude. The forms in Cezanne’s Bathers have all been simplified to a point that you can see where Cezanne used sweeping strokes to get the roundness and fullness of the figures. This is also used by Picasso in all of his figures in Les Demoiselles, but there are parts of the figures which are far more angular and geometric, like on the right leg of the far left figure, and the chest of the figure in the top right.

Another link between Cezanne and Picasso is the traditional subject matter of figures remain. Even the popular poses like the arm bent over behind the head with the standing figure in Bathers, and the two central figures in Les Demoiselles with one and both arms bent behind the heads. Picasso deciding to adopt the techniques of Cezanne and taking an interest in primitive art at the same time, was a revolutionary move in modern art. The Romanticism art movement was also inspired by primitive art but only took subject matter, and it was Picasso changing the style and approach to modern art that achieved such success and attention.

There are also intentionally inaccurate natural situations used to highlight his motives. This last technique is used in both Mont Sainte Victoire and Bathers. Cezanne used the trees’ branch in Mont Sainte Victoire as a kind of framing device, it stretches inwards towards the middle of the canvas while also following the edge of it, and the lower parts of the branches unrealistically follow the mountain line. This is to highlight the abandonment of verisimilitude and the lack of realism and believability of the circumstances; this is to make the point that there is a difference between photography and fine art. The point is that fine art can explore situations that may not be possible, or just extremely unlikely, but can also completely break the bounds of what is real and what is not. It is this point that is so perfectly encapsulated in Cezanne’s paintings, that same point deeply inspired and effected Picasso and Braque’s work.

Cezanne also intentionally makes the colours used in Mont Sainte Victoire of great similarity and mainly desaturated greens, yellows, blues, a bit of brown and not much else. This allows for very little toning of any objects or subjects in his images, and this means there is little definition between foreground, middle ground and background. This technique is also evident in Bathers and almost all of Cezanne’s other work. The backgrounds of both paintings mentioned have been simplified into simple shapes and lines; the trees in Bathers have become extremely childlike and simple, just green blobs on sticks of brown on top of a childish hill that is round enough to be in an animated cartoon. But this lack of detail and clarity in the background and even the middle grounds of his paintings have again inspired and been taken on into the extreme by Picasso and Braque, and again Les Demoiselles D’Avingnon and Violin and Palette are perfect examples of this revolutionary Cezanne technique. In both Les Demoiselle and Violin and Palette there is virtually no sign on a background, in Violin and Palette there is just black mass that fills in and forms the monotone geometric shapes. Picasso follows the same principle but there is only the most basic and primitive type of representation of a background scenery. The figure in the top right appears to be emerging through blue curtains from a back room (Les Demoiselles was based on a brothel scenery in Paris), but the background scene is still made up of just coloured shapes.

Both Picasso and Braque had extremely broken down styles of painting, and this reached such an extreme level and reached such an extreme version of Cezanne’s work that they had created an entire new art movement with their own new styles and philosophies of modern painting. They still both have artwork that is closer to traditional work that relates closely to Cezanne with figures like Les Demoiselle, but decided to change the subject matter of modern painting as well as the styles and techniques. They decided that everyday objects would provide easy new subject matter and would look brilliant under the lens of their new Cubist movement. Ready-made objects that would be found in the studios of both artists were the subject matter of cubism, but the objects were reduced to broken up geometric shapes and colours, and only the crucial details make the objects recognisable for what they are. The outline shape of the violin in Violin and Palette is barely recognisable, but a combination of the sound holes, bridge and abstract lines that represent the strings are the only things that tell us what this object is. The rest of the image is made up of lines, desaturated colours, geometric shapes which create multiple perspectives and no definitive foreground, middle ground or background. The multiple perspectives create a strange multifaceted appearance that appears to create movement. The lack of clarity between foreground and background combined with similar and desaturated colours results in the ‘shuttling’ of ones’ eyes as they struggle to find something outstanding to focus on.

The many techniques and artistic styles highlighting Cezanne’s inspiration for both Picasso and Braque’s work include simplified and geometric forms, intentional framing of the canvas, desaturated colours (sometimes monotone or very similar colours), lack of clarity between foreground and background, abandonment of verisimilitude, simple and thick brush strokes, multiple perspectives and shuttling. All of these features of Cezanne’s work and the links to Picasso and Braque’s work inspired millions of artists and aspiring artists alike, and freed modern art into what we know today, allowing artists to not be as concerned with traditional methods and subject matter.