Marion and Valabrègue Setting out to Paint from Nature

In 1866 Cézanne was 27 and back home near Aix-en-Provence, painting in thick slabs laid on with a palette knife, dark, rough work nothing like the Cézanne people picture now. He shows two friends heading out into the countryside to paint from nature, Marion, a young naturalist, carrying the brushes, and Valabrègue, a poet and critic, walking beside him. That was the argument of the moment, that a painter should work outdoors in front of the real thing. Cézanne had written to his friend the novelist Zola about a big outdoor picture on exactly this theme. In the end he gave that plan up and painted this one where painters usually did, indoors in the studio.