Editing Paul Cézanne (section)

===Dark period, Paris, 1861–1870===
[[File:Cézanne - FWN 593.jpg|thumb|left|''Women Dressing'', {{Circa|1867}}]]
[[File:L'Enlèvement, par Paul Cézanne, FWN 590.jpg|thumb|''The Abduction'', 1867, [[Fitzwilliam Museum]]]]
[[File:Paul Cézanne - The Murder - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''The Murder'', 1867–1870, [[Walker Art Gallery]], Liverpool]]
Cézanne's early "dark" period was influenced by the works of [[Romanticism in France|French Romanticism]] and early [[Realism (art movement)|Realism]]. Models were [[Eugène Delacroix]] and [[Gustave Courbet]]. His paintings are characterized by a thick application of paint, high-contrast, dark tones with pronounced shadows, the use of pure black and other tones mixed with black, brown, gray and Prussian blue; occasionally a few white dots or green and red brushstrokes are added to brighten up, enlivening the monochrome monotony.<ref name="Paul Cézanne">{{cite web |title=Paul Cézanne |url=http://www.g26.ch/art_cezanne.html |website=g23.ch |access-date=17 July 2022 |archive-date=16 October 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051016003630/http://www.g26.ch/art_cezanne.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> The themes of his pictures from this period are portraits of family members or demonic-erotic content, in which his own traumatic experiences are reminiscent. They differ sharply from his earlier watercolours and sketches at the École Spéciale de dessin at [[Aix-en-Provence]] in 1859, and their violence of expression is in contrast to his subsequent works.<ref>''Le Moniteur'', 24 April 1863, in Maneglier, Hervé, ''Paris Impérial – La vie quotidienne sous le Second Empire,'' p. 173</ref>

In 1866–67, inspired by the example of Courbet, Cézanne painted a series of paintings with a [[palette knife]]. He later called these works, mostly portraits, ''une couillarde'' ("a coarse word for ostentatious virility").<ref name="Gowing10" /> [[Lawrence Gowing]] has written that Cézanne's palette knife phase "was not only the invention of modern [[expressionism]], although it was incidentally that; the idea of art as emotional ejaculation made its first appearance at this moment".<ref name="Gowing10">Gowing 1988, p. 10.</ref>

Among the ''couillarde'' paintings are a series of portraits of his uncle Dominique in which Cézanne achieved a style that "was as unified as Impressionism was fragmentary".<ref>Gowing 1988, p. 104.</ref> Later works of the dark period include several erotic or violent subjects, such as ''Women Dressing'' (c. 1867), ''The Abduction'' (1867), and ''The Murder'' (1867–1870),<ref>{{cite web |date=n.d. |title=The Murder |url=https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/murder |website=[[National Museums Liverpool]] |access-date=22 January 2025 |archive-date=16 September 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240916194833/https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/artifact/murder |url-status=live}}</ref> which depicts a man stabbing a woman who is held down by his female accomplice.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZNEkDQAAQBAJ&dq=cezanne%2C+The+Murder%2C+man+stabbing+a+woman%2C+female+accomplice&pg=PA29 André Dombrowski, ''Cézanne, Murder, and Modern Life''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191224062921/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZNEkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA29&dq=cezanne,+The+Murder,+man+stabbing+a+woman,+female+accomplice&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_2e3M4N7YAhXDOxQKHWuLAi0Q6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=cezanne%2C%20The%20Murder%2C%20man%20stabbing%20a%20woman%2C%20female%20accomplice&f=false |date=24 December 2019 }}, University of California Press, 2013, {{ISBN|0520273397}}</ref>