When I was about seven years old I went to the National Gallery of Art with my father. I don’t remember why we were alone on this visit but I do remember falling in love with this painting. Flowers in a Rococo Vase by Paul Cezanne. My father bought me a reproduction. (Sadly, vanished somewhere long since…)

Diane Tucker, whose art blog I adore, has written about Cezanne here … https://theshymuseumgoer.com/2025/03/16/paul-cezanne-painting-style/ … and I strongly recommend that you go read her lovely entry. There’s lovely art to look at, and Diane discusses what people have said about Cezanne’s art over the years, plus what she thinks. The picture that her words paint is very tender. Cezanne was deadly serious about his art, but though he was very private he was not, himself, a tortured soul.

The National Gallery of Art has a sketchbook of Cezanne’s https://www.nga.gov/features/cezanne-sketchbook.html Here is one of the sketches. I don’t know why it is called Three Heads including Madame Cezanne…. because I only see two.

Pictures in the collections of the National Gallery are clearly labeled when they are in the public domain and available for download, which both of these pictures are.