His paintbrush set everything in motion: the landscape of Provence, the colorful still lifes, his portraits, and the picturesque coast of southern France. More than any other artist, Paul Cézanne, the "Father of Modernism," captured the light and the play of colors in his pictures and lent them through his new pictorial language a liveliness and dynamism which continue to fascinate viewers to this day.

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) painted the Montagne Sainte-Victoire, a rocky massif near his birthplace Aix-en-Provence, some eighty times. The artist translated the interplay of sunlight and shadow on the constantly changing stone into pictures on the threshold of abstraction. Today, those paintings are icons of art history, and they underline Cézanne's reputation as one of the most important pioneers of Classical Modernism. Countless artists, including Matisse, Derain, Picasso, Braque, and Léger, found inspiration in Cézanne's ideas on color modulation and pictorial composition. In this richly illustrated, accessible volume, Christoph Wagner positions Cézanne as an artistic genius who opened up a completely new view of the world through his paintings and watercolors.