The CBS Sunday Morning Show featured artist Paul Cezanne and his influence on future artists. Pop Art can even thank this French artist of the late 1800s for opening the door to the accessibility and interpretation of art. 

The show mentioned that Picasso and Matisse went to a showing of Cezanne’s work and were inspired by his use of colors, his flat plane landscapes, and his lack of literal interpretation. Both of these artists considered Cezanne a mentor, and both took their art to dizzying heights never before expressed. You can pick up on Cezanne’s influence throughout their body of work. No wonder many people consider him the father of modern art. 

Flash forward a few decades. Pop art enters in the 1950s. Pop art takes familiar objects and people and turns them into art. Every man’s art–our food, our icons, even our take on life. This is no different than what any of the other artists who have ever lived. Artists take what they know, who fascinates them, whatever objects they identify with–and turn them into art. Van Gogh painted sunflowers in part because they were in abundance in the South of France where he was painting. Pop art is the same–it comes from our immediate world, whatever is abundant, whatever we connect with. 

Pop art takes the familiar, the loved, the fascinating and makes art out of it. Cezanne and all the other artists since him would no doubt feel a kinship to popart–and immediately get the connection.