L'Estaque, neve che si scioglie

In the summer of 1870 France went to war with Prussia, and Cezanne, who wanted nothing to do with it, left Paris and disappeared into the south. He holed up with his family in Provence, then, afraid of being found, slipped away to L'Estaque, a small fishing and lime-kiln village on the coast near Marseille. In January 1871 the authorities officially listed him as a draft evader. This is what he painted while hiding: a steep hillside under a slick of melting snow, the whole thing tilting toward you beneath a heavy, bruised sky. He worked it fast and dark, nothing like the sunlit Provence he would later be known for. Snow is rare down there. He painted it only twice in his life.