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"By Jove we were inseparable," Camille Pissarro wrote of his two-decade friendship with Paul Cezanne. Now the similarities and differences in the vision of the two French artists are examined in a Paris exhibition.
"Cezanne-Pissarro 1865-1885" opens on Tuesday at the Musee d'Orsay until May 28 and is one of the major events in France marking the 100th anniversary of the death of Cezanne (1839-1906), today considered the father of modern art.
"Cezanne ... was influenced by me in Pontoise, and I by him," Pissarro (1830-1903) wrote towards the end of his life, describing the friendship sparked when the two met as young, struggling artists in Paris.
Some 60 canvasses spanning some 20 years have been brought together by the museum, including many on special loan from private collections rarely seen by the public at large.
Self-portraits and portraits of each other open the exhibition which is ordered in pairs of paintings, chronologically and by subject matter, such as still lifes or the landscapes painted when they travelled together around Paris, visiting villages such as Pontoise and Auvers.
The visitor thus gets a privileged view of works which are usually dispersed now hung side-by-side, showing two views of the same scene such as the town of "Louveciennes" painted by both artists.
In paintings of the garden of Maubuisson at Pontoise, northwest of Paris, "they choose the same frame, but Pissarro's orchard is more impressionist, while Cezanne's is stripped of the foreground," said Sylvie Patin, chief curator at the museum.
The exhibition was the brainwave of Pissarro's great-grandson, Joachim Pissarro, and has been put together in partnership with the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The two artists first met in 1861 in Paris in the Swiss painter's studio. "Pissarro quickly realised that Cezanne was really good," said Patin. The two men struck up a friendship and worked together in and around Paris, before Cezanne later returned for good to his native Provence.
"Pissarro has a more panoramic eye, while Cezanne gets closer to the subject. In Pissarro's work the countrysides are inhabited by small figures of people, while Cezanne has a more austere vision.
"Pissarro incited Cezanne to work with nature, while Cezanne for his part helped Pissarro to express himself, he gave him a surer touch."
Their collaboration came to an end in 1885 when Cezanne returned to Provence and the two men only saw each other once more briefly in 1895 when Monet's "Cathedrals" were exhibited in Paris.
But both recognised and acknowledged the influence the other had had on their work and their vision.
"I admired the curious, disconcerting side of Cezanne which I still feel after all these years," Pissarro wrote.
In return Cezanne, who was a difficult, often cantakerous character, came to appreciate the influence that Pissarro had on him, even though the latter once referred to Cezanne as a "rare bird".
Cezanne's work was gradually to move away from impressionism, as he sought through geometric patterns and the use of colour planes to inject a new reality into art, thus giving birth to the new cubist movement and wielding a great influence on the Spanish artist Pabolo Picasso.
Cezanne-Pissarro (1865-1885) is at the Musee d'Orsay, every day except Monday from 9:30 am to 18:00 pm, and until 21:45 pm on Thursdays. Entrance nine or seven euros (10 or eight dollars).
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AFPEntertainment-art-France-Cezanne
AFP 281211 GMT 02 06
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