Paul Cézanne, a renowned French painter, created several views of Mont Sainte-Victoire from his home in Les Lauves. Les Lauves is situated north of Aix, and Cézanne purchased a one-acre plot there in 1901. He produced paintings of the mountain on occasion throughout his life, with two primary periods: one from 1870 to 1895 and the other from 1895 until his death in 1906.
The painting Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen From Les Lauves is among the most radical in the series. This particular version includes vegetal elements before the viewer that frame the view of both the mountain and prairie. The late Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings show Cézanne’s transformation of the mountain into a realm of “cosmic” creation.
Cézanne’s technique captured impressive structure and spatial values using colour spots and impressively curved brushwork while also conveying an atmosphere through light patches blended over equal tone surfaces. In contrast to traditional landscape work that emphasized sentimentality aesthetics or naturalistic attentiveness, “Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen From Les Lauves” synthesizes spatial development with vibrant and broken colour to create artwork very characteristic of its moment – this artwork can be viewed at Tate Modern.
Overall, Paul Cézanne’s ‘Mont-Sainte Victoire Vu Des Laubes’ (Le Mont Sainte-Victoire Vu Des Lauves) highlights not just nature but also architecture through high tonal contrasts between colours; structures are brought out with intense luminosity by being painted darker than their environment complemented by ungraceful form overlaps which delivers an overall flatness look – closely resembling a woven tapestry more than physical space.
