It is not clear if Paul Cezanne painted as a small child. As a schoolboy he was interested main! in literature and in his own attempts at verse. The earliest drawings to have survived we] not produced until after his schooldays. If he did have artistic leanings, they were certain not encouraged by his parents.
However, the many discussions with h close schoolfriend, Emile Zola, were an early stimulus for his imagination. The two young friends explored the region of Provence together on long excursions, and throughout his life the painter would feel closely linked to this landscape. In later life, Cezanne returned again and again to the themes of his childhood - the quarries that he and Zola walked through, the groups of bathers they saw, and the outline of nearby Mount Sainte-Victoire the peak of a range of low mountains.