Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from Bellevue
Painting by Paul Cézanne
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Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from Bellevue is a landscape painting dating from around 1886, by the French artist Paul Cézanne. The subject of the painting is the Montagne Sainte-Victoire in Provence in southern France. Cézanne spent a lot of time in Aix-en-Provence at the time, and developed a special relationship with the landscape. This particular mountain, that stood out in the surrounding landscape, he could see from his house, and he painted it in on numerous occasions.[1]
| Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from Bellevue | |
|---|---|
| |
| Artist | Paul Cézanne |
| Year | c. 1895 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Movement | Post Impressionism |
| Dimensions | 73 cm × 92 cm (29 in × 36 in) |
| Location | Barnes Foundation, Pennsylvania |
Only half a year after the opening of the Aix–Marseille railway line on October 15, 1877, Cézanne wrote to his friend Émile Zola on April 14, 1878, praising Mont Sainte-Victoire—seen from the train as it crossed the Arc River Valley bridge—as a “beau motif” (“beautiful motif”).[2] Around this time, at the age of thirty-nine, Cézanne began, for the first time, a series of paintings devoted to Mont Sainte-Victoire in his native Aix-en-Provence. It is therefore highly probable that this celebrated series was inspired by the scenery viewed from the window of a moving train.[3]
Indeed, in this painting, the railway bridge on the Aix–Marseille line, which crosses the Arc River Valley, is depicted near the center-right of the composition.[4]
The painting shows clearly Cézanne's project of rendering order and clarity to natural scenes, without giving up the optical realism of Impressionism.[5] Both the light and the colours of the painting give the impression of a pattern that is not imposed on nature, but is there naturally.[5]