This book gathers the commentary of people who knew the painter Paul Cezanne, especially in his later years. Now seen as one of the most influential of modern painters, in his 40s he returned to his village of Aix-en-Provence where, he worked in near obscurity and with great dedication until his death in 1906.

Drawing on a broad foundation in the history of nineteenth-century French art, Richard Shiff offers an innovative interpretation of Cézanne's painting. He shows how Cézanne's style met the emerging criteria of a "technique of originality" and how it satisfied critics sympathetic to symbolism as well as to impressionism. Expanding his study of the interaction of Cézanne and his critics, Shiff considers the problem of modern art in general. He locates the core of modernism in a dialectic of making (technique) and finding (originality). Ultimately, Shiff provides not only clarifying accounts of impressionism and symbolism but of a modern classicism as well.

Revered and misunderstood by his peers and lauded by later generations as the father of modern art, Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) has long been a subject of fascination for artists and art lovers, writers, poets, and philosophers. His life was a ceaseless artistic quest, and he channeled much of his wide-ranging intellect and ferocious wit into his letters. Punctuated by exasperated theorizing and philosophical reflection, outbursts of creative ecstasy and melancholic confession, the artist’s correspondence reveals both the heroic and all-toohuman qualities of a man who is indisputably among the pantheon of all-time greats. This new translation of Cézanne’s letters includes more than twenty that were previously unpublished and reproduces the sketches and caricatures with which Cézanne occasionally illustrated his words. The letters shed light on some of the key artistic relationships of the modern period—about one third of Cézanne’s more than 250 letters are to his boyhood companion Émile Zola, and he communicated extensively with Camille Pissarro and the dealer Ambroise Vollard. The translation is richly annotated with explanatory notes, and, for the first time, the letters are cross-referenced to the current catalogue raisonné. Numerous inaccuracies and archaisms in the previous English edition of the letters are corrected, and many intriguing passages that were unaccountably omitted have been restored. The result is a publishing landmark that ably conveys Cézanne’s intricacy of expression.

The Pixels of Paul Cezanne is a collection of essays by Wim Wenders in which he presents his observations and reflections on the fellow artists who have influenced, shaped, and inspired him. "How are they doing it?" is the key question that Wenders asks as he looks at the dance work of Pina Bausch, the paintings of Cezanne, Edward Hopper, and Andrew Wyeth, as well as the films of Ingmar Bergman, Michelanelo Antonioni, Ozu, Anthony Mann, Douglas Sirk, and Sam Fuller. He finds the answer by trying to understand their individual perspectives, and, in the process revealing his own art of perception in texts of rare poignancy.

Platonic Architectonics: Platonic Philosophies & the Visual Arts examines philosophical structures of Plato in their structural, spatial, and architectonic implications. It examines elements of Plato's philosophical systems in relation to other philosophical systems, including those of Anaximander, Plotinus, Proclus, Nicolas Cusanus, Marsilio Ficino, Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan, and Jacques Derrida. It also examines Plato's philosophy in relation to architectonic conceptions in the arts, including the work of Leon Battista Alberti and Piero della Francesca in the Renaissance, Paul Cezanne, and the Cubists and Deconstructivists in the twentieth century. Platonic Architectonics presents new interpretations of philosophical texts, artistic treatises, and works of art and architecture in Western culture as they are interrelated and related to Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophical structures. It demonstrates the importance of philosophy in the production of the visual arts throughout history and the importance of the relation between the work of art and the philosophical text and artistic treatise.

A new account of Cézanne's complex relationship with his wife, who served as the subject of some of his most iconic portraits Paul Cézanne's (1839-1906) portraits of Hortense Fiquet (1850-1922), his wife and the subject of some of his iconic portraits, rank among the most powerful of their kind in French modernism. Yet, posterity has not been kind to Madame Cézanne. She was called a distraction, blamed for her husband's "lackluster" landscapes, and disdained for her impenetrable expression in the paintings. The reality is more complex, for while Fiquet may not have been the passion of Cézanne's lifetime, she was a willing accomplice, as model, mother of his only son, and unwavering partner against all odds. Madame Cézanne examines this unique relationship as it looks at Cézanne the painter, draftsman, and portraitist. Featuring 24 of Cézanne's oil portraits of Fiquet and most of the known drawings, Madame Cézanne both reevaluates, with insight and compassion, the long-held misconceptions about the Cézannes' unconventional marriage, and shows how Cézanne's portraits of his wife provide a lens through which to better understand his overall technique. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (11/18/14-03/15/15)