Lost earth

by Philip Callow

Only now can we see Paul Cezanne as the invisible genius at the very inception of modern art. Philip Callow's life of the great painter, the first in more than a quarter-century, offers a vital reassessment. Drawing on contemporary sources and on Joachim Gasquet's newly translated firsthand account, Mr. Callow employs his exceptional skills and a poetic prose to follow the twists and turns of an outwardly uneventful life that was filled with inner anguish. He traces Cezanne's bitter struggle to overcome personal inadequacies and the insults of the critical community, and examines with new insights Cezanne's relationship with Emile Zola, the most profound friendship of the painter's career. For all of Cezanne's weakness and despair, Lost Earth is the story of a transcendent artist who was passionately committed to a tradition he would one day transform. His love of the outdoors enabled him to paint the universe in an apple and to change the landscape behind us.