The Gulf of Marseilles Seen from L’Estaque c. 1885

Paul Cézanne painted "The Gulf of Marseilles Seen from L’Estaque" using oil on canvas, capturing a serene yet subtly unsettling landscape. The composition is structured through distinct horizontal bands of rooftops, land, and sea, each rendered with Cézanne's signature planar brushstrokes. These strokes, seemingly simple, build volume and space, creating a tension between flatness and depth. Cézanne’s reduction of form to basic geometric shapes—cubes for houses, cylinders for chimneys—pushes against traditional representation. He challenges our perception by dismantling conventional perspective, instead constructing space through color and form. This approach reflects a broader artistic movement questioning established modes of seeing and representing the world. Ultimately, it is Cézanne's formal manipulation, this distillation of reality into its essential components, that invites us to reconsider the very nature of perception and representation.