Like Hale, Danchev gives a rounded view of both man and painter. Both use wide reading and judicious scholarship to minimise the psychological suppositions that so often mar biographies of artists. They know that sometimes paintings can be read as proof only of themselves and not of the artist's state of mind. And late Cézanne-pictures such as The Bathers series-is all about pictorial harmony and structure. As the painter and theorist Maurice Denis said: "I have never heard an admirer of Cézanne give me a clear and concise reason for his admiration." Danchev, though, gets pretty close.