Shortly after he left the patchy lighting of Chateau Noir, Cézanne painted Mount Saint-Victoire (V. 798) (1902-1904), a painting that clearly shows the now blocked colors developed at Chateau Noir. Already, the style is unmistakably different from that which appeared before Chateau Noir as the painting now shows the characteristic blocks of unblended color. These patches are completely unlike the earlier chiaroscuro blended color forms in that they are delineated blocks of color with defined boundaries and hard, regular lines. Pepe Karmel describes the later style like this, “In his later paintings, he tended to apply paint in short, broad parallel strokes that formed squares or parallelograms of a single hue” (Karmel, 188). As Karmel describes, the colors have become disjointed and separate. This is result of the patched light of Chateau Noir’s light, the colors could not cross the distinct boundary created the light’s discreet packages. The effect can be seen especially well on the left flank of the mountain face where the color transforms in three distinct steps from brown to green to tan. Each step is separate and contained with no flow between the color blocks. The paint’s borders have become regular lines, and the forms they create are essentially drawn out rectangles. While not quite as distinctly different as the previous location on the mountain face, the colors on the right hand flank of the mountain exhibit the same kind of autonomy as well as hard-edged shape. On the right hand flank, we see a grouping of color forms of rough squares in shades ranging from light blue to purple to brown. Yet, even with that type of color distribution, there is no transition between these colors save the border between them.
Mount Saint-Victoire (Tyson) (1902-1906) shows the similar view as the Mount Saint-Victoire (V. 798) but exhibits a more developed and exaggerated blocking of color than the earlier version. The countryside in this painting is especially exemplifies the Cézanne’s color blocking technique. Here we see the greens of flora contrasting heavily against the tans and browns of dirt and dried grass. Again, there is essentially no blending between the different colors. They stand on their own, using that contrast to enhance their mass creating effect. In the mountain, we again see the purple, blue and green hues all standing next to each other. This new style was not a transitory effect that only persisted randomly for a few months after his time at Chateau Noir. A serious, perseverant method disseminated throughout his paintings and followed him to the end of his career.
Mount Saint-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves (V. 1529) (1904-1906) comes from the end of his career and shows an example of a still more developed style acquired at Chateau Noir. The mountain’s peak exhibits a stunning example of the new style. At first, it appears as though the peak has been left off entirely, but closer examination reveals that the entire peak is a single square of brilliant white paint surrounded by dark greens, blues and purples. That same effect of the mountain peak can also be seen in Mount Saint-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves (V. 802) (1904-1906). Like Mount Saint-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves (V. 1529), this painting comes from the end of Cézanne’s life and that characteristic peak becomes a hallmark of his later life. The new style also appears forcefully in the foreground countryside. Here, especially along the foothill line, shades of tan, green, pink and blue don’t so much as mingle, but rather stand around disjointedly as if they were standing around at a cocktail party where no body spoke together. There are no cases in this location where colors have blended, each shape is its own respective color. If we compare these late paintings back to the early equivalents, the change is remarkable. There is no chiaroscuro type blending or shading, the colors are all independent and solid and the shapes have become hardened and regular; we have all from Cézanne’s three years spent in the wilds of Chateau Noir.
Cézanne, P. Mount Saint-Victoire (V.798), 1902-1904, oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA.
Cézanne, Paul. Mount Saint-Victoire, 1902-1906, oil on canvas. Collection of Mrs. Carroll S. Tyson, Philadelphia, PA.
Cézanne, Paul. Mount Saint-Victoire Seen from Les Lauves (V. 1529), 1904-1906, oil on canvas. Kuntsmuseum, Basel, Switzerland.