As with many of his still life paintings, Cézanne broke down his figures into basic geometrical forms. He felt that everything in life consisted of the basic forms of a cylinder, sphere and cone. Like the Impressionists, Cézanne wanted his brushstrokes to be visible to the viewer, so he frequently used a palette knife instead of a brush. He was well known for using these flat brushstrokes and adding light and dark tones later for contrast and depth. These flat strokes were usually of primary colors, which he mixed on his canvas and not the usual painter's palette. In The Card Players and other later works, Cézanne mixed colors together less and less. This unusual method was very influential to the future Cubist painters.