Joachim Gasquet's Cezanne: A Memoir With Conversations

From dust jacket notes: "Joachim Gasquet's personal and largely first-hand study of the greatest and most profound modern painter has been known to Cezanne experts and art historians for some time. But it has hitherto been available only in the French edition that was published originally in 1921. Now the English-reading audience is introduced for the first time to an invaluable and often-cited source of information on Cezanne's aspirations and ideas. Gasquet's father Henri was a schoolboy friend of Cezanne's in Aix, and in his later years Cezanne painted impressive portraits of both father and son. Joachim himself, a young man with a consuming interest in literature and Provencal culture, first came to know Cezanne in 1896. On numerous occasions prior to Cezanne's death in 1906, he saw and talked with the artist he so much admired. The first half of the book offers an account of Cezanne's life and career, based on Cezanne's own hints and testimony as well as details Gasquet obtained from others who had known the artist at various stages of his life in Paris and Aix. The second half is couched in the form of conversations between Gasquet and Cezanne, in the course of which Cezanne struggles to formulate his basic artistic philosophy. What emerges is a poignant and unforgettable portrait of a tortured, obsessed genius who seemed doomed never to satisfy his own ideals...."