Donatien Grau considers the very different aesthetic paths followed by Gauguin and Cézanne.

Grau writes: "Cézanne and Gauguin made two antagonistic choices—while they had actually started on common ground, both were fascinated with literature very early on… [Cézanne ]strove to become another Poussin, and to change painting from the inside only, to leave aside all attempts to connect painting to the world of modernity… making it the simplest possible, the purest possible, and to work as a man of craft and technique… Cézanne challenged painting with painting, while Gauguin also challenged painting with otherness—be it linguistic, cultural, geographic, or religious. The considerable changes he brought to the technique of painting were part of a broader strategy of otherness, artistic, literary, political, and, yes, religious.