The Mind Creative March 2014
During the early-to-mid 1890’s, the French post-impressionist
artist Paul Cézanne painted a series of five oil paintings called The
Card Players. These works, considered by critics to be some of the
finest works of art produced by the painter, is based around
Provencal male peasants smoking their pipes and playing cards.
Apparently, he used local farmhands as models for his painting
and, unlike many other depictions of card players by other
painters, he depicted them as concentrating fiercely and looking
down into the cards.
Cézanne initially made many studies and preparatory paintings
and drawings for The Card Player series. Some of these initial
preparatory works are considered exemplary works of art in
themselves.
Cézanne’s preparatory works for
Self-Portrait
Paul Cézanne
1875
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