Veduta mattutina di L'Estaque in controluce

Cézanne kept going back to L'Estaque, a fishing village on the rocky bay just west of Marseille, where the roofs, the water, and the far hills stack into clean geometric blocks. He painted this one in the morning, looking into the light, so the far shore flattens into a pale band while the nearer forms hold their weight. He had first hidden out at L'Estaque about a decade earlier to dodge the draft in the war with Prussia, then returned for years because the southern structure suited how he was learning to build a landscape out of planes of colour. There is little atmosphere or incident. What holds the picture together is the way each patch of orange roof and blue sea is set firmly against the next.