Whether portraits, still lifes or landscapes, Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) painted nearly 900 canvases and 400 watercolours during his career. An incredible record of achievement, a testament to unprecedented modernity! If he produced so much, it is indeed due to the new technique of painting outdoors, on the spot. All the more so as he explored the multiple possibilities of representing the same subject, leading him to paint several versions. Although today Cézanne is regarded as a pioneer of modernism, this was not always the case! At the beginning of his career he was greatly influenced by Courbet and Delacroix. Delacroix was probably the first to draw sketches on the outside of a small notebook. Even though they were artists ahead of their time, Monet and Pissarro had already revolutionised the way of painting, long before Cézanne. In fact, he was initially refused entry to the Salon until he began to paint like his peers, on the ground. He took the impressionist technique one step further. With his innovative forms and colours, his quasi-abstract compositions, he was a great influence on the cubists and other avant-gardists who followed him.