Why Cézanne is called the father of modern art

Cézanne valued the formal beauty of painting and emphasized the compositional order of the visual elements of the picture. This kind of pursuit has long existed in the Western classical art tradition. And Cézanne always held a reverence for classical art. He most admired the French classical painter Poussin. He once said, "My goal is to paint Poussin-style works with nature as the object."

He tried to make his paintings achieve the kind of wonderful balance and perfection in Poussin's works. He was so obsessive in his pursuit of this that he became disenchanted with the traditional laws of reproduction. He went to the extreme of breaking away from the traditions of Western art. It is for this reason that he is honored as the "Father of Modern Painting".

EXTENDED INFORMATION

Cézanne's paintings have distinctive characteristics. He emphasized the purity of painting and the formal composition of painting. Through painting, he wanted to discover a certain simplicity of form underneath the appearance of nature, and at the same time, to compose an orderly image from the scattered vision of the eye. To this end, he carried out a series of artistic explorations.

First, he emphasized the clarity and solidity of the objects in his paintings. He believed that if the objects in the paintings were blurred, it would be impossible to seek the compositional meaning of the picture.

Therefore, he opposed the painting language of Impressionism, which neglected sketching and made the objects indistinct. He aspired to "make impressionism as solid and permanent as art in a museum". Thus, he sought a painting language that could produce sharp, solid forms.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia - Paul Cézanne