曼西桥

Between the spring of 1879 and early 1880, Cézanne was living quietly at Melun, southeast of Paris, and he walked out to paint this small stone bridge over the Almont at nearby Maincy. He had shown with the Impressionists a few years earlier, but by now he was pulling away from them. Instead of catching a fleeting moment, he built the scene from long, parallel strokes laid down like the crosshatching of a drawing, so that foliage, water and reflections all lock together into a firm structure. The light still flickers across the surface, yet everything feels weighed and deliberate. This is Cézanne working toward the solid, constructed landscapes of his later years, out on an ordinary country footbridge that still stands and is now often called the Pont Cézanne.