Paul Cézanne, the son of a banker, was supposed to become a lawyer, but even during his short studies of law, Cézanne showed great interest in art. In 1861 Cézanne gave up his legal studies to go to Paris and concentrate entirely on art, but he did not pass the entrance examination at the 'Ècole des Beaux-Arts'. At first Cézanne studied the classical and Baroque masters like Poussin and Rubens at the Louvre, but was also influenced by contemporary painters like Delacroix, Courbet and Daumier. At the 'Ecole Suisse', where he attended drawing lessons, Cézanne met C. Pissarro, who introduced him to the Impressionist circle. During the following time, the artist was rejected by all exhibitions of the Salon. In the first counter-exhibition organised by the rejected Impressionist artists in 1874 he managed to sell one single picture. In 1886 his friend Emile Zola, whom he had met at the 'Collège de Bourbon' in his youth published the novel 'L'Oeuvre' about failed artists. Subsequently Cèzanne turned away from Zola. In 1870 he moved to the remote fishing village of L'Estaque near Marseille. Throughout his life, Paul Cézanne switched between stays in Provence, Paris and rural villages of the Ile-de-France. From Paris Cézanne stylistically retained the bright palette he had learned from Pisarro, and the method of plein air painting, but his late work was no longer characterised by an Impressionist atmosphere, but by the domination of the absolutely set color with its contrasting effects and chromatic shades. Similarly Cézanne strove for the reduction to basic geometrical forms: inconsistency of perspective and lighting and deformation of proportions were the consequence. With this process, Cézanne abandoned the Impressionist approach and strongly influenced modern art, especially Fauvism and Cubism. During his last ten years the artist increasingly gained recognition, the Berlin 'Nationalgalerie' was the first museum to acquire one of his paintings and in 1900 his first solo exhibition took place at Paul Cassirer's in Berlin, but Cézanne withdrew more and more from public life. Finally he lived in Aix, where he had a studio building built at the Chemin des Lauves in 1902. Particularly from 1904 Cézanne imparted his art concept to young painters like Louis Le Bail, Charles Camoin and Maurice Denis. Many modern artists, including Kandinsky, Malevic and Giacometti were inspired by Cézanne's image concept, painting style and his theoretical opinions which were published from 1907.