The House of the Hanged Man by Paul Cezanne

Paul Cézanne's painting The House of the Hanged Man was completed in 1873. The title of this painting served only as a pretext for Cézanne's landscape. He applied his paint with a heavy hand and worked the surface with a palette knife. The resulting impasto (the thick paint application) and Paul Cézanne's rigorously constructed composition in The House of the Hanged Man marked a difference from the landscape approach of Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot that quickly characterized the Impressionist circle.

Paul Cézanne's The House of the Hanged Man (oil on canvas, 21-3/4x26 inches) hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Paul Cézanne's ferocious independence led to his only participating in two Impressionist exhibitions. Next, we'll see a painting that earned him great praise at the group's first show.

For more on Impressionist paintings, artists, and art history, see:

• Impressionism
• Vincent van Gogh
• Claude Monet