Landscape with a Water Mill

In 1870 and into 1871, while France was at war with Prussia, Cézanne stayed in the south at L'Estaque, on the coast near Marseille, avoiding the army call-up. Years later his son wrote "L'Estaque 1870" on a photograph of this picture, and most scholars place it around 1871.

It is a closed, heavy little scene. A stone mill sits in a fold between two hillsides, a thin stream of white water runs down through grey rock, and a few dark trees stand along the ridges against a flat blue sky. There is no figure anywhere. When the Paris dealer Ambroise Vollard entered it in his stockbook, he described it simply as a dark landscape with a few trees crowning the crests.