The generation of young artists in Paris from 1900 to World War One looked at Cezanne’s late painting as if it were nature itself, thus the work of the Fauves, Cubists, Futurists, Purists et al was already a meta-art, an art about art rather than art about nature or even historical ideas or mythological motifs. From Matisse onward through the twentieth century painting is about other painting. In mathematical terms, Cezanne’s late work is the first derivative of nature and Cubism is the second derivative of nature.