Paul Cezanne, 'In the Bibémus Quarry', 1900-04

In the mid-1890s the French artist Paul Cezanne rented a small shack on the edge of the Bibémus Quarry. This was four kilometres east of Aix-en-Provence, in the foothills of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire. Cezanne had known the area since childhood. In 1896 his friend Numa Coste mentioned in a letter to Emile Zola, the writer and their mutual friend, that Cezanne had rented a cabin and was spending most of his time there. It is possible that he was working there at an earlier date. He would continue to work in the area until at least 1902 when his new studio at Les Lauves was completed.

The Bibémus Quarry fascinated the artist and inspired his work. In total he produced 11 oil paintings and 16 watercolours there. The rock formations are eight to ten million years old. They appealed to his deep interest in prehistory: ‘In order to paint a landscape well, I first need to discover its geological foundations,’ he once wrote to a friend. Only five of his views can be precisely identified today. This may be due to a combination of Cezanne’s approach to landscape painting and changes to the quarry as nature continues to claim it back.

The quarry had been abandoned since 1885, providing the artist with a landscape of eroded geometric shapes. The limestone was not quarried by machines but chipped away by hand from the bottom. This left unusual, top-heavy shapes in the rock. The upright, angular, oddly shaped rocks that rear vertiginously upward out of the vegetation proved to be influential on Cezanne’s approach to painting. His use of flat planes and broad areas of colour, which can be seen in this painting, would later be influential on Cubism and Abstraction.

The combination of natural and manmade forms complemented Cezanne’s obsession with spatial construction and optical effects. The passages of flatness that he was developing as ways to depict the landscape around him were, at Bibémus, readily observable, as can be seen here. His vibrant paint strokes and complementary colours produced areas of both flatness and volume. These perfectly describe the quarry’s landscape. Cezanne’s amber earth tones, blues and greens were also ideal for the chromatic, manmade landscape that was being reclaimed by nature. The blue sky at the top of the canvas contrasts vividly with the bold ochres and reds of the rock face. A patch of blue in the shrubs below pulls the composition together. It has been suggested that the triangular section of the quarry is a close-up of the female form.

The vertical format of the painting helps to convey the height and depth of the quarry. However, it is the small figure that allows the viewer to understand the scale of the cliffs. He has been described as a puppet. This is the only one of Cezanne’s paintings of Bibémus to show a figure. It is not clear who this person is, perhaps a geologist or another visitor.