Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves

In his last years Cezanne could not leave this mountain alone. In 1902 he built a studio on a slope called Les Lauves, on the northern edge of Aix, and from up there Mont Sainte-Victoire stood clear on the horizon. He painted it again and again, more than 30 times toward the end, and this is one of those late views. The mountain and the plain below break into patches of green, ochre and blue laid side by side, and the closer he looks the less solid everything becomes, until the scene reads almost as coloured architecture. In October 1906 Cezanne was caught in a storm while painting outdoors near here and fell ill. He died a few days later.