Paul Cézanne, after a phase of uneasy dissension among the Impressionists, withdraws from the movement in 1878 in order “to make of Impressionism something solid and durable like the art of the museums.”

In contrast to the passing show depicted by the Impressionists, his approach imbues landscape and still life with a monumental permanence and coherence.

He abandons the Impressionists' virtuoso depiction of evanescent light effects in his preoccupation with the underlying structures of natural forms and the problem of unifying surface patterns with spatial depth.

Again rejected by the Salon, Cézanne moves in 1878 to Aix-en-Provence, where he has to endure the insults of his tyrannical father, whose financial help he needs to survive since his canvases are still not finding buyers.

He works in Aix and ...