Book excerpt: CEZANNE BY HIMSELF is a major volume on the life and work of Paul Cezanne (1836-1906), a painter whose innovative ideas of representation set him apart from his contemporaries and led the way for a new school of art. This edition distinguishes itself by combining the artist's correspondence and the memoirs of his friends with a sweeping selection of reproductions of his works. One of the most influential of nineteenth-century artists, Cezanne exhibited in his work a concern with form and structure that presaged the development of Modernism. It was this aspect of his work that led a subsequent generation of art historians to dub him the first 'post-Impressionist'. Despite his artistic achievements and education, however, Cezanne was ill at ease in the cafes and salons of the Paris art world. This book is the first fully illustrated account to show the paradoxes and contradictions of Cezanne's personality through his own writings and the reminiscences of his contemporaries, and it provides fascinating evidence of his friendships and family life.