Paul Cézanne and The Card Players

'The Card Players' (5th version, 1894-1895) by Paul Cézanne; Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Paul Cézanne was a well-known French painter who was born on 19 January 1839, and is said to have built a bridge between Impressionism and Cubism. A long long time ago, when I was studying, I used to have a postcard framed of a landscape painting by Cézanne. It hung on the wall in my student flat. I couldn't find this particular image while searching for a painting for this post, or I simply didn't recognise it. I still like some of his landscape works as well as his still life paintings but finally decided to post this one of 'The Card Players'. Apparently he made five versions of this painting (click here for a detailed description) with the number of players varying. It was towards the 1890s that Cézanne became interested in portraying human beings and 'The Card Players' is evidence of that.