Paul Cezanne was the son of a wealthy banker in the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence. Cezanne develops artistic interest at an early age and joins his boyhood companion and author Emile Zola in Paris in 1861, after many disputes with his father over his desire to dedicate himself to painting. Cezanne's stay in Paris lasted only six months. Though attracted by the more radical art forms in Paris, admiring the innovating works by Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet, he destroys many canvases during depressive moments and returns home full of self-doubt. A year spent working with his father, however, convinced him to try a painter's life again. Cezanne's early works were dark and composed of heavy, fluid pigment suggesting the moody, romantic expression of previous generations. Cezanne returns to Paris suffering a new defeat when failing the entrance exam for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Worse, his paintings are rejected by the Salon. Thanks to Pissarro, he is introduced to Impressionist painters such as Manet and Degas.

At 30, Cezanne changes his style and his habits. He meets Hortense Fiquet who becomes his mistress for many years. The black and morbid atmosphere of his painting gradually changes as he concentrates on landscape subjects. This period is also known as "constructive", characterized by the grouping of parallel, hatched brushstrokes that have the power to build a feeling of mass. After the birth of his son, Cezanne moved with his family to Pontoise, where Pissarro lived. For two years the two men spent long periods together. Pissarro introduces him to Impressionist painting and his work is finally exhibited together with other Impressionist works in 1874.

For many years, still-lifes and landscapes were Cezanne's main topics. Composing more than 200 still-life paintings, Cezanne wants to 'conquer Paris with an apple'. 'Apples and Oranges' is one of his most famous still-life compositions. Applying the same methodical analysis to these works as he did with his landscapes, Cezanne records the slightest variations in tone and color observed over long periods as well as the forms from empirical geometry he considered the most frequent in nature - the 'cylinder, sphere and the cone'.