In Paul Cézanne’s 1902-06 Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves, the combined usage of brush strokes, color schemes, and dimension help create a piece that captures the movement and mood of nature (more specifically Mont Sainte-Victoire) in Southern France.
Cézanne’s use of short yet thick brush strokes make up the entire oil painting, and almost appear to have no rhyme or reason. However, these strokes, with their variety of direction, come together in the larger picture to create a landscape that expresses the movement of a seemingly still-from-afar subject. While painting a landscape with a naked eye, an artist could easily forget that every point in that landscape is moving and contains life. Cézanne clearly made it a point to maintain that life through his brush strokes; capturing the wind-driven trees or changes in the sky. As stated in the text, “the brushwork acts the part of the individual musician in a superbly integrated symphony orchestra” (Arnason & Mansfield, 48). Paul Cézanne’s brush strokes nearly dance across the page to form a perfectly choreographed painting.
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The dark browns and greens that create the greenery and, what appears to be, a small village, causes the foreground to appear cluttered in the most intentional way possible. In turn, the eye seeks refuge in the soft and open colors of blue and white, which form the subject of the