Cézanne was perhaps the most complex artist of the 19th century. One of the greatest of the Postimpressionists, his works and ideas were crucial to the aesthetic development of many 20th-century artists and art movements, especially Cubism.

Cézanne’s ambition, in his own words, was "to make out of Impressionism something as solid and durable as the paintings of the museums". He aimed to achieve the monumental in a modern language of glowing, vibrating tones. Cézanne wanted to retain the natural colour of an object and to harmonize it with the various influences of light and shade trying to destroy it; to work out a scale of tones expressing the mass and character of the form.