Illustrated throughout with original, evocative imagery as well as reproductions of art, these introductory biographies explore the works and lives of important artists and architects in detail, and trace the influence of their legacies on our world.

The scion of a prosperous family from Aix-en-Provence, Paul Cézanne was a temperamental artist who declared from the beginning that he would go his own way. He is revered not for perfecting a certain style but because he challenged convention and pioneered new possibilities in modern art, as seen in this charmingly illustrated biography. "I could paint for a hundred years, a thousand years without stopping and I would still feel as if I knew nothing," Cézanne declared, and in his mature work he used color and line in unexpected ways.