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Oriental Elements in Cezanne’s Art 
Hui Gao 

College of Art and Design, Wuhan Textile University, Wuhan, China 

Abstract. Paul Cezanne is one of the representative artists of post-impressionism in France. In the 
early 19th century, Japanese paintings were famous and influenced by the second industrial 
revolution and respected Oriental works of art. Many Western artists initially increased Oriental 
elements to create but superficial. In the mid-19th century, with the emergence of Oriental art stores 
in the streets of France, the popularity of Oriental works has been further developed. Until the late 
19th century, represented by Cezanne artists, art has been dared to explore and innovate on the 
road. Painting, especially in the late paintings of many potential injections of Oriental elements. 
Cezanne did not go to the East; a visible blend of Eastern and Western art exploration seems to 
have a hidden fusion very early. Therefore, this paper attempts to conduct a preliminary discussion 
on three aspects of composition, artistic temperament, and color, which helps us further explore the 
early integration of Eastern and Western art. 

Keywords: Cezanne; oriental elements; composition; color; artistic temperament. 
 

About the achievements of Cezanne artists, Herbert Reed wrote: ' Obviously, our so-called 
modern art movement began with the sincere determination of a French impressionist painter to 
observe and depict the world objectively.[1](p6) Before Cezanne went to Paris to study, the Oriental 
style quietly prevailed. After the second industrial revolution, Chinese arts and crafts export ushered 
in a “ China boom " in Europe. Impressionist painters involved eastern elements in creating their 
works, such as porcelain, kimonos, fans, silk, and singers. By the middle of the 19th century, there 
were Oriental art shops in France, and there was an upsurge in the pursuit of Japanese Fushi paintings 
in the general classification. In a letter, Bisharroe, who was regarded as his art mentor by Cezanne, 
mentioned that he had a positive attitude towards the popularity of Japanese artists in the West, 
affecting his views. Cezanne 's later works changed the creative style of traditional Western 
Painting. His pursuit was not satisfied with the performance of objectivism. He refused to pursue the 
one-sided purpose of light and color but paid attention to the expression of subjective feelings and 
emotions and emphasized individuality. He paid attention to invisible and constituted lines, color 
blocks, and blocks in terms of shape and color. 

1. Cezanne's: plane geometries. 
Unlike the focus perspective in western Painting, traditional Chinese Painting uses a more 

scattered view. From the 1990s and the 20th century, Cezanne began to explore the structure, the edge 
of the light, shadow, and painting colors to present his works.  

Between 1895 and 1898, Cezanne’s oil painting, “Apple’s Still Life’; looked at photographs from 
multiple perspectives and refused to imitate objects. The edge of the fruit on the plate was uncertain 
and seemed moving to break the rules of philosophy in the diagram. By looking down at the table to 
observe the unequal left and right sides of the table, the right corner of the table tilted to one side, 
with the left side not on a line, length inconsistent tableware. Some parts of the picture are unpainted, 
the folds of the tablecloth seem unfinished, and there are gaps. To quote Picasso's assessment of 
Cezanne's paintings, he "combined several different aspects of the same object in the same picture in 
order to express the true multidimensional space," which was the first cornerstone of cubism, the 
representation of reality and the representation of light and space.   

In his letter to Emil, Cezanne wrote that "cylinders, spheres, and cones describe objects, and 
perspective relations should be expressed... Lines perpendicular to the horizon give a sense of depth.[2] 
Influenced by the free-cutting composition in Japanese Fukuda prints, Cezanne used geometric 
figures, points, and lines to pursue freedom, mobility, and infinite extension in the composition of 



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paintings. For example, the work St. Victor Hill uses the composition of a stable triangular structure 
to place the mountain in plane space. The mountain is drawn or far away by multiple viewing 
mountains, and the visual points surrounding the colorful blocks and light of the mountain are 
obscured. The mountain's towering height is highlighted, and the “ eternal impression " of the picture 
is pursued. The edge line of the overall outline intersects the distance so that people can observe from 
different perspectives and clearly and conveniently understand spatial relations through paintings. 
For example, the works of ' men with arms ' also use a multi-perspective painting. The man in the 
Painting combines the left face or right face into a face, and the viewer will find some distortion from 
different angles. Gombrich's evaluation of Cezanne's Painting says, "in one of his still lifes, fruit bowl 
off the table and another fruit bowl in different level, seems to be fast falling outside the picture, the 
picture is completely broken, this is Cezanne for balanced on the composition and form to the 
coordination between methods." [3] Cezanne's painting style, together with Guo Xi's composition of 
the so-called "three yuan Method" in the Song Dynasty, can be seen as the artistic style of perspective. 
He pointed out that according to the so-called ' far-reaching ' in the ' three far, 'the mountain can be 
seen from the front of the mountain; the so-called " far away, " can be seen from the mountains far 
away; the so-called ' high far, 'you can see from the foot of the mountain top. Therefore, according to 
this scatter perspective composition, people's scenery in different spaces can be placed in the picture 
at other times. 

2. Cezanne pursues ' the artistic temperament of self-feelings.'  
Chinese Traditional Painting pursues the fusion of subject and object image space and has the 

characteristics of liquidity; traditional western Painting has a deep-rooted ' imitation,' and Western 
thinking mode, the pursuit of realistic space illusion, its spatial performance has a relatively static.  

Cezanne believes that Painting is not an imitation of nature but a tendency to subjective self-
emotional art. He pursues eternal consciousness when mentioning subjective and objective emotions. 
Cezanne said: ' I think I am the subject consciousness of this landscape; my picture is its object 
consciousness. The picture and scenery are outside me, a chaotic disorder and fleeting, messy, lack 
of logical or rational coherence; the other is eternal, sensible, and classified. [4](11) In Oriental 
civilization, nature should not be a ' controlled ' object. Oriental civilization pursues the harmony and 
unity of man and nature, subjective and objective, and advocates the search for ' one ' in nature and 
the unity of man and nature. [5] Cezanne thinks: 'Painting - does not mean blindly copying reality; it 
means seeking the harmony of various relations. In a series of Cezanne's works, the picture space of 
' still objects with pomegranates and bottles ' is deeply planarized, the triangle shape in the works of 
' geranium ' is stable, and in the works of ' Laue Castle, '' low-view view looks at the middle and near 
view. The high-view view looks at the distant view. ' In the treatment of distant and near views, it is 
mentioned that ' the distant view is closer to reality, the near view is virtualized, and the depth is 
weakened. ' [6]In contrast to Oriental painting, the beauty of the composition, and the concise painting 
of an object, into the subjective emotion, making the work ' with abstract and realistic duality, and 
object into one. [7] However, Cezanne 's theory ' shows the Truth of inner perception ' potentially has 
something in common with the Chinese landscape spirit. 

3. ' Truth and modeling' of colors'  
Duri highly praises Cezanne ' s ' color shaping ': ' The world of the mind has a stunning color 

victory, the overall harmony of color is strong and quiet, and the stability of the balanced composition. 
' The popularity of Japanese Fushi prints in the West can not be separated from the influence of 
traditional Chinese Painting, and Cezanne co-named the other two post-impressionists Sanjie-
GaoGeng, Van Gogh, have absorbed the eastern Painting in the shadowless flat color. Cezanne 
believes that all objects in nature have color and weight. Because of his acquaintance with his friend 
Pissalo, he began to observe the Painting of natural sketches. From the initial rough outline to imitate 



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the color and light of nature to the late 19th century, Cezanne tried to explore the innovative use of 
color. In his works, the authenticity of the color that absorbed the East was reflected, and he tried to 
use color blocks to plastically represent things, such as volume, spatial structure, and light and dark 
contrast. Cezanne put forward that art has harmony, which is not contrary to nature, and artists are 
parallel to nature. [8] In the work of ' San Victor, with great looseness, ' Cezanne reshaped objects with 
orderly strokes. In the picture, these colorful strokes shape the near-range land and pine trees, the 
mid-range houses and bridges, and the long-range mountains. Cezanne weaves a unique ' net ' on 
canvas through subtle changes in strokes and colors, which is not a description of nature but an 
expression of nature. 'Jean de Buffalo Park ' paints the pool with different layers of brush strokes and 
works on the color linkage between green and blue in ' Tree Works - Italian Pentacon. ' 

In the mature period of creation, Cezanne's structural contour is weakened, the color and form of 
the picture blend, and the painting style are abstract. In his landscape paintings, he abandons the 
traditional imitation of natural color in the West, but indulges in the accumulation of the number of 
colors, constantly mixes and adjusts colors, attaches importance to the local and profound expression 
of colors, and pays attention to the harmony of the overall color, and strives to show a primitive art. 
Just as primitive humans tried to draw the initial impression of nature in rocks or caves, such as ' 
Esther ' s Bay, 'Cezanne uses sketching to thicken the tone of the contour in the picture and to isolate 
the regions with color blocks to deal with the brightness of the color. The building is foiled by color 
depth, and the surrounding scenery is brightened. In addition, a small brush color palette is added to 
reconcile the setting sun and the soft water lines. For another example, in the work “ Sheep Ring of 
Bufang, "Cezanne uses the bright and dark outline of color and combines it with geometry. The color 
blocks shape the volume sense of the house, and the body is solid, and the block is clear, forming a 
solid sense of the house, shaping a more obvious volume sense, and improving the primary and 
secondary sense of the picture. The work ' Big Bathwoman ' lasted for eight years. The Batwoman 
and tall trees form a triangular structure in the picture and outline each character form with a brief 
number of aggravating contours. The layout of the photograph is staggered, and the area of each 
character is adjusted. The format is stunned, and the shape is three-dimensional. 

The image color of ' still objects in front of the back of the chair ' is blue and gray, and the middle 
level is red-brown. The contrast in the complementary form of the whole picture ' stone is simple and 
easy, and color overlap seems subtle and changeable. The outline of the characters in ' Gardener 
Villari ' is blue and grey, the background is light green and light blue, and the warm color is sometimes 
red, which is matched with white clothes and presents a plain and straightforward tone. 

4. Conclusion  
Cezanne has been exploring and innovating in his art and Painting. In his works of art, the elements 

of oriental Painting are potentially reflected. From the perspective of “ plane geometry composition, 
" the scattered perspective method and composition mobility are adopted, and then the absorption of 
shadowless Painting in oriental Painting in terms of color, the pursuit of natural authenticity and color 
plasticity, and finally to the art of subjective self-affection in terms of artistic temperament, and the 
consciousness of seeking " eternity. " Understanding Cezanne's innovative exploration of oriental 
elements in Western Painting helps promote the integration of Eastern and Western art. 

References 
[1]  Herbert Read. A brief history of modern Painting [ M ]. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Art Publishing 

House. 1979  
[2]  John Gold, translated by Zheng Nian. Sai Shang Chuan [ M ]. Shanghai: Shanghai People's Art 

Publishing House, 1997.  
[3]  Gombrich. The story of art [ M ]. Fan Jingzhong, translation. Nanning: Guangxi Fine Arts Press, 2008.  
[4]  Liu Hongxing. Western Artist Gallery 8 : Cezanne [ M ]. Changchun: Jilin Art Publishing House, 2001.  



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[5]  Foreign Press Editorial Department, Taiwan Photocopying Bureau Editorial Department. World-famous 
paintings and giants [ Z ]. Beijing: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1997.  

[6]  Liu Limin. On Oriental Art Elements in Cezanne Watercolor Painting [ J ]. Art Education, 2009 ( 04 ) : 
112-113 + 117.  

[7]  Joaquim: Painting Room-the Dialogue between Cezanne and Gaskell. Zhang Xiaoming, Xu Di, Zhejiang 
Literature and Art Press.2007, p. 10. 

 
 


	1. Cezanne's: plane geometries.
	2. Cezanne pursues ' the artistic temperament of self-feelings.'
	3. ' Truth and modeling' of colors'
	4. Conclusion
	References