Editing Paul Cézanne (section)

===Final period, Provence, 1890–1906===
[[File:Aix-Atelier Cézanne-bjs180816-06.jpg|thumb|[[Cézanne's studio]] in [[Aix-en-Provence]] from 1902 until his 1906 death]]
[[File:Paul Cézanne, Pyramid of Skulls, c. 1901.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Pyramid of Skulls]],'' {{Circa|1901}}. The dramatic resignation to death informs several [[still life]] paintings Cézanne made in his final period between 1898 and 1905 which take the skulls as their subject. Today the skulls themselves remain in Cézanne's studio in a suburb of [[Aix-en-Provence]].]]

Many of his later works, the so-called "lyrical period", such as the cycle of the bathers, are characterized by a turn to freely invented figures in the landscape; Cézanne created about 140 paintings and sketches on the theme of the bathing scenes. Here you can find his admiration for classical painting, which seeks to unite man and nature in harmony in Arcadian idylls. In the last seven years he created three large-format versions of ''[[The Bathers (Cézanne)|The Great Bathers]] (Les Grandes Baigneuses)'', with the 208 × 249&nbsp;cm work on display in Philadelphia being the largest. Cézanne was concerned with the composition and the interplay of shapes and colours, of nature and figures. For his paintings at this time he used sketches and photographs as templates, since he did not like the presence of naked models.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Becks-Malorny |title=Cézanne |pages=81–88}}</ref>

[[File:Paul Cézanne, 1892-95, Les joueurs de carte (The Card Players), 60 x 73 cm, oil on canvas, Courtauld Institute of Art, London.jpg|thumb|''Les joueurs de cartes ([[The Card Players]])'', 1892–1895, oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm, [[Courtauld Institute of Art]], London]]
Cézanne painted five versions of ''[[The Card Players]]'' (Les Joueurs de cartes) in 1890 and 1895, in which the same person is represented in different variants. For ''The Card Players'', he used farmers and day laborers who worked in the fields near the Jas de Bouffan as models. They are not [[Genre painting|genre pictures]], even if they show scenes from everyday life; the motif is constructed according to strict laws of colour and form.

The area around the [[Montagne Sainte-Victoire]] was one of the most important themes of his later years. From a vantage point above [[Cézanne's studio|his studio]], later called Terrain des Paintres, he painted several views of the mountain. A precise observation of nature was a prerequisite for Cézanne's painting: "In order to paint a landscape correctly, I first have to recognize the geological stratification."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cézanne |first1=Paul |last2=Doran |first2=P.M. |title=Conversations with Cézanne |date=2001 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=0520225171 |page=140}}</ref> In total he painted more than 30 oil paintings and 45 watercolours of the mountains, and he wrote to a friend in the 1890s "art is a harmony parallel to nature".<ref>{{cite web |author1=Toovey, R |title=Art is a harmony in parallel with nature |url=https://www.pressreader.com/uk/west-sussex-county-times/20210121/282338272530016 |via=PressReader |publisher=West Sussex County Times |access-date=22 October 2022 |archive-date=22 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221022204822/https://www.pressreader.com/uk/west-sussex-county-times/20210121/282338272530016 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Cézanne was primarily concerned with [[watercolor painting|watercolour painting]] in his late work, as he realized that the specific application of his method could be particularly evident in this medium. The late watercolours also had an effect on his oil paintings, for example in the study with bathers (1902–1906), in which a depiction full of “empty spaces” flanked by colour appears to be complete.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adriani |title=Cézanne. Life and Work |page=78}}</ref> The painter and art critic [[Roger Fry]] emphasized this in his seminal Cézanne publication ''Cézanne: A Study of His Development'' from 1927 that after 1885 the watercolour technique had a strong influence on his painting with oil paints. The watercolours in Vollard's Cézanne monograph of 1914 and in [[Julius Meier-Graefe]]'s picture portfolio edited in 1918 with ten facsimiles based on the watercolours became known to a larger group of interested parties.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adriani |title=Cézanne. Watercolours |page=22}}</ref> Only lightly coloured pencil studies, which occasionally appeared in sketch albums, stand next to carefully coloured works. Many watercolours are equal to the realizations on canvas and form an autonomous group of works. In terms of subject matter, landscape watercolours dominate, followed by figure paintings and still lifes, while portraits, in contrast to paintings and drawings, are rarer.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Adriani |title=Cézanne. Watercolours |page=19}}</ref>