Paul Cezanne, 'The Sea at L'Estaque', 1876

Paul Cezanne’s painting shows us a view down from the fishing village of L’Estaque and across an azure Mediterranean Sea, with a light blue sky. The warmth and power of the sun can be felt through the vibrant colours and the bold light. Although the village is visible, none of the inhabitants are included, giving the painting a great stillness and calm.

For many years Cezanne’s mother rented a house in the heights of L’Estaque in the bay of Marseille. The mountains on the horizon in the painting are the Calanque d’En-Vau on the island of Ratonneau in the Frioul archipelago. The village was only 29 kilometres from the artist’s parents’ house in Aix-en-Provence and was, therefore, both convenient and distant. Cezanne had a complicated relationship with his father, Louis-Auguste, a banker. Cezanne’s father did not approve of his son’s career, nor of the fact that he was often asked for money. In particular, he did not approve of the more bohemian aspects of Cezanne’s lifestyle. So, Cezanne kept his relationship with Hortense Fiquet, a model, a secret from his parents.

The couple first visited L’Estaque in 1870 when Cezanne was avoiding military service in the Franco-Prussian War. Although denounced as a draft dodger in 1871, he evaded arrest. The couple’s son Paul was born in 1872 and the three of them would stay together in L’Estaque, unbeknown to his parents.

In 1876 Cezanne was again in L’Estaque. He wrote to his friend and fellow Impressionist Camille Pissarro: ‘I have begun two small subjects showing the sea for Monsieur Chocquet, who had spoken to me about it. It’s like a playing card. Red roofs against the blue sea…The sun here is so vivid that it seems to me that objects are always outlined, not only white or black, but blue, red, brown violet.’ Cezanne was describing his developing approach of laying down one plane of colour next to another without any shading. Each element then looked as if it could be individually picked up like a playing card.

At this time in his career, Cezanne’s approach was not appreciated by everyone. In 1874 he was described as ‘a sort of madman who paints in delirium tremens’. However, it was this very approach to landscape painting that made Cezanne such an influence on artists including Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.