“Will I ever arrive at the goal so sought after?” Cézanne saw himself as the Moses of modern art. Where was his promised land? Though Cézanne, the extraordinary “post-impressionist” painted only a few religious subjects, and no crucifixions, his testimony shows him to be a believer, having been raised in the church and having renewed his faith in his latter years. He attended mass inconsistently at first, then regularly later on in life. I will argue that his oeuvre makes little sense without recognizing the presence of the Creator God. We can see this in at least four ways: (1) his critique of idolatry [l’Éternel Féminin]; (2) reconciliations of mankind with the creation, and the individual with the self [Les Baigneuses]; (3) leading us to the invisible; from love to victory [La Montagne Sainte Victoire], (4) and perhaps most important, his break with his childhood friend Émile Zola.
