“Tell me, do you think I’m going mad?” asked the artist Paul Cézanne (1839–1906). “I sometimes wonder, you know.” As an ambitious young painter determined to make it big in Paris, Cézanne initially drew intense ridicule for his unique style. He used small “constructive strokes” to form dynamic and dimensional figures in his paintings, rejecting the use of dark lines to demarcate one object from another. It wasn’t until his 1895 solo exhibition at Ambroise Vollard’s Parisian gallery that he achieved widespread recognition. Cézanne wasn’t “mad,” simply visionary. His still lifes, landscapes, and portraits propelled the art world into a modern era and paved the way for future generations of rule-breakers, painters like Picasso and Matisse. This career-spanning survey at the Tate Modern takes a deeply personal approach to the life and legacy of Paul Cézanne. —Nyla Gilstrap