Paul Cézanne

Known for: the foundation of modern painting; the Mont Sainte-Victoire series

Paul Cézanne spent most of his career working in near-isolation in Aix-en-Provence, building a practice of systematic doubt — applying paint in small, parallel strokes to translate sensation into structure — that influenced more subsequent painters than any other modern artist. His late series of Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings were made over 30 years of returning to the same motif. Picasso, Braque, and Matisse each identified him as the decisive foundation for their own work.