On this day in 1839, the French artist and painter, a prominent representative of post-impressionism, Paul Cézanne was born. The artist had a huge influence on the masters of the 20th century, including Henri Matisse, André Derain, Pablo Picasso. Cézanne painted the picture in his Parisian studio on the Val-de-Grâce: he dressed up his son Paul as Harlequin, and his friend as Pierrot. The boys had to pose for hours, and the shoemaker's son Louis Guillaume once fainted. Accustomed to painting landscapes and still lifes, Cézanne turned to composition with figures for the first time. In the process of working on the picture, live models (the artist was never able to give up nature) turned into mannequins. "This is not Pierrot and Harlequin. This is a monument to Pierrot and Harlequin," noted Yakov Tugendhold.