Influences from Impressionism
In Paris, Cezanne developed close relationships with several Impressionists, including Camille Pissarro. His paintings clearly reflected Impressionist influences, and he even displayed his art alongside artists like Pissarro and Claude Monet at two Impressionist exhibitions. In his paintings, Cezanne often layered short visible brushstrokes on top of each other, mixing many different colors together and creating a texture that one could find in an Impressionist painting. Cezanne used this mix of colors to create shadow and dimensionality, a technique that Impressionists, who recognized that shadows were not simply shades of black and gray, employed. In addition, like the Impressionists, Cezanne built many of his forms completely from color gradations, which left many of the lines in his paintings unarticulated and undefined. Cezanne's uses of Impressionist color technique can be found in the painting, The Card Players, shown below.
The Card Players by Paul Cezanne
Cezanne famously referred to Camille Pissarro, an Impressionist painter he befriended in Paris, as a "father" who inspired and encouraged him. Completed in 1879, The Hay Cart by Pissaro clearly displays the Impressionist technique that Cezanne learned from. Like the wall in The Card Players, the ground in The Hay Cart is made up of thin, short brushstrokes that mix together shades of blue, orange, green, and yellow. Moreover, there are also very few clearly articulated lines in Pissarro's painting -- the trees, hay stacks, and house, all overlap and blend into each other.
Another prominent Impressionist who was a contemporary of Cezanne was Claude Monet. The classic Impressionist technique that Cezanne adopted is clear in Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies and Haystacks. In the first painting, the water lilies are formed by short, thin brushstrokes that juxtapose pink, white, blue, and green shades without blending. The haystacks in the second painting are created with a similar technique. Additionally, in Haystacks, Monet painted the shadows blue instead of black or gray, an Impressionist invention that Cezanne's paintings also include.