Cezanne grew up in Aix-en-Provence and orignally trained as a lawyer. In the early 1860s he began to study painting at the Academie Suisse in Paris and later met and became good friends with several Impressionist painters. Between 1870 and 1879, under the influence of his mentor Pissarro, he painted in the Impressionist style. From 1880 he developed a new style using repeated paralell brushstrokes. He painted many landscapes including a series of paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire. He also painted still lifes and portraits, mainly of himself and his wife.