How to Read Paintings: Mont Sainte-Victoire by Paul Cézanne
A technique of fractured forms and shimmering brushstrokes that inspired a generation of artists
Mount Sainte-Victoire stands to the east of Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. It is a limestone mountain ridge that dominates views of the surrounding landscape.
Paul Cézanne painted Mount Sainte-Victoire many times. In this version, which is one of the largest he made of the subject, the landscape is beginning to disintegrate into the paint. The sky, for instance, is made up of simple overlapping tiles of colour that slightly vary in shade to give a rough, patchwork feel. The same patchwork is continued through the mountain, with fractional more contrast in tones and only a few crude brush marks delineating the outline of the ridge.
There is an intentional simplification of the landscape in the way Cézanne has built up this painting. The effect is much less about artifice and ornamentation — Cézanne was not trying to paint a lifelike illusion. Rather, he seemed to be looking for a type of harmonious form: he used structured blocks that fragment the surface…
