Cézanne, Monet and Van Gogh — three painters, three card studios
The three painters behind this studio and its two friend sites: how Cézanne turned Impressionist colour into geometry, and where to paint with all three palettes.
Cézanne's Card is built on one painter's method — the constructive colour patch, laid side by side until a mountain or an apple becomes solid without a single drawn outline. Two friend sites are built the same way: Monet's Card, for the broken light of Claude Monet's garden at Giverny, and Van Gogh's Card, for the swirling long strokes Van Gogh pushed to their limit in Arles and at Saint-Rémy. Cézanne was the eldest of the three and the slowest to be understood; the other two now hang a floor away from him in the same museums.
Three painters, three studios
Every studio distils one painter's palettes into a tool that runs in the browser. One of them is this site; the other two are friend sites.
Paul Cézanne
1839–1906Post-ImpressionismThis siteBuild a Mont Sainte-Victoire card from his Provençal palettes — constructive colour patches, the ochre of the Bibémus quarry and the studio at Les Lauves.
Vincent van Gogh
1853–1890Post-ImpressionismPaint a Starry Night-style card from the palettes of his paintings — swirling impasto strokes, the sunflowers, the Yellow House at Arles and the cypresses of Saint-Rémy.
Claude Monet
1840–1926ImpressionismPaint a Giverny garden card from his palettes — the water lilies, the Japanese bridge, the haystacks and the light of Impressionism.
- 1874 · The name
- Monet shows Impression, Sunrise at the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris; a critic's mockery of the title gives the whole movement its name.
- 1886 · Paris
- The last Impressionist exhibition is held, and Van Gogh arrives in Paris the same year — meeting the Impressionists and Cézanne's generation head-on.
- 1888–1890 · Arles and Saint-Rémy
- Van Gogh's most productive years: the Yellow House, the sunflowers and The Starry Night. Cézanne keeps working alone in Provence.
- Today · Where they hang
- Monet's Water Lilies at the Musée de l'Orangerie, Van Gogh's The Starry Night at MoMA, Cézanne's Card Players at the Musée d'Orsay — and a palette studio for each of them online.
1Cézanne: colour becomes construction
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) showed with the Impressionists in 1874 and 1877, then withdrew to Aix-en-Provence and worked alone for thirty years. What he was after was not the fleeting moment but the permanent structure underneath it: he built Mont Sainte-Victoire, the Bibémus quarry and his still lifes out of flat patches of colour, modelling form by temperature instead of by line. The two late exhibitions of 1895 and 1907 changed everything — Picasso, Braque and Matisse all called him the father of modern art.
2Monet and Van Gogh: the two he bracketed
Monet (1840–1926) was Impressionism's founding eye — a critic mocking his Impression, Sunrise in 1874 named the movement — and he spent his last forty years at Giverny painting the same water lilies over and over. Van Gogh (1853–1890) arrived a generation later, took Impressionist colour, and turned it into loaded, swirling strokes: the sunflowers, the Yellow House at Arles, The Starry Night. Cézanne read them both closely, borrowed colour from the first, and structure from neither.
Start with Cézanne's palettes
Palettes distilled from the rock of Mont Sainte-Victoire, the ochre of the Bibémus quarry and the pines of the garden at Les Lauves. No account, nothing uploaded.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the three painters on this page?
Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh — the three painters behind this studio and its two friend sites.
What is a friend site here?
The other two studios are made the same way: each distils one painter's palettes into a tool that runs in the browser. They cross-link with this site in the footer and on this page.
Why is Cézanne called the father of modern art?
Because he replaced the Impressionist sketch of a passing moment with something built to last: form modelled by colour patches rather than by outline. Picasso and Matisse both said the two Cézanne exhibitions of 1895 and 1907 decided their generation.
Can I paint with the other painters’ palettes on this site?
No — each studio carries its own painter’s palettes only. The other palettes live on their own friend sites: follow the links above.
Keep exploring
Every page in both languages: the studio, Cézanne's Provence, his paintings and the museums that hold them today.
- Mont Sainte-Victoire painting studioPaint a Cézanne-style card in the browser — colour patches, strokes, text, export.
- Cézanne's Provence: the mountain & the studioMont Sainte-Victoire, the Bibémus quarry, the studio and the family house.
- Cézanne's paintings & Cézanne's BathersEight ready-made compositions you can open and keep painting.
- Where are Cézanne's paintings & Cézanne's studioHow the studio works, and what makes every card unique.
- Terms of ServiceNo login, no upload, and the full font licence list.