Mont Sainte-Victoire 1906

Paul Cézanne made this painting of Mont Sainte-Victoire with oil paint, using strokes that feel like stacked blocks of color. It’s a symphony of blues, greens, and yellows, each dab a deliberate note in a landscape both seen and felt. You can imagine Cézanne, squinting at the mountain, trying to capture not just its form but its essence. The way the light hits it, the way it sits in the landscape. The paint is applied in these chunky, deliberate marks. He’s wrestling with the problem of how to translate three dimensions onto a flat surface, how to make a painting breathe with the same air as the scene itself. Look at the way he builds up the mountain with blues and greys. You can almost feel the cool air of the high altitude. Cézanne’s work was so important for Picasso and Braque. He paved the way for them to break down form and rebuild it in new, exciting ways. Painters are always in conversation with each other. We borrow, steal, and transform ideas across time, inspiring one another to see and create in new ways.