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Description: Paul Cezanne   1839-1906 L'ESTAQUE VU A TRAVERS LES PINS Oil on canvas 28 3/4 by 36 3/8 in. 73 by 92.4cm. Painted circa 1882-83. During the early 1880s Cezanne worked frequently at L'Estaque, where he executed the present work. In 1883 he informed his friend Emile Zola that he had rented there a small house with a garden in the quartier du Chateau, where he was planning to spend the rest of the year. As he wrote to his friend, his house at L'Estaque was "at the foot of the hill, where behind me rise the rocks and pines. I am still busy painting, I have some beautiful views," (John Rewald, Cezanne, A Biography, London, 1986, p.148). John Rewald's dating of the present composition to circa 1882-83 places it at a critical moment in the development of Cezanne's visual language, one that was to have a profound influence on the development of 20th Century painting. Rewald relates this picture to a number of landscapes painted during the same period which show similar techniques of execution, notably L'Estaque le matin, vu a contre jour (Rewald no. 516, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, on loan, fig. 2). As in the present picture, the houses of L'Estaque are seen from a high vantage point but the barrier of trees partially obscuring the houses is missing. Analyzing Cezanne's work of this period, Rewald wrote: "The difference between the impressionistic sensation, which is rapid, ephemeral and fleeting, and that of Cezanne is that his sensations result logically in the full knowledge of the subject in the classical sense. Cezanne often said that he wished to 'become classical again through nature, that is to say through sensation'. And Classicism, as he understood it, meant to 'revive Poussin in contact with nature'. Nature was the essential element, the source of art, but 'one must not reproduce it, one must interpret it. By means of what? By means of plastic equivalents of color' " (Rewald, p. 155). While seeking his own style, the artist endeavoured to react against the danger he felt was inherent in the complete dissolution of mass and elimination of local color pursued by the Impressionist artists. He remarked: "There are two things in the painter: the eye and the brain. The two must cooperate; one must work for the development of both, but as a painter: of the eye through the outlook on nature, of the brain through the logic of organised sensations that provide the means of expression" (ibid., p. 155). The new visual language Cezanne developed during these years, epitomized by this composition, presupposes a fundamental difference between painting and reality in nature. The artist rendered the group of trees and their foliage through a network of rhythmic brushstrokes, whose varied, luminous colors give the work a sense of light and atmosphere. At the same time, he arranged the color planes in an orderly fashion, which, together with the simplified monumentality of the tree trunk in the foreground, lend the composition a compelling structure that transcends the mobile effects of light on the foliage and the houses glimpsed through the trees. The landscape at L'Estaque lit by a strong Mediterranean sun pushed Cezanne towards a more ruthless investigation of the mechanics of composition than any of his contemporaries had yet undertaken. Moved by a passionate desire to create a new classical syntax with the vocabulary of Impressionism, the artist flattened the trees and houses onto the picture plane, at the same time modelling them with a gentle and precise relief. In this vibrant symphony of contrasting greens, blues, yellows and browns, where the tree trunks alone are solidly outlined, the artist creates a visual depth that owes very little to conventional methods of rendering perspective and spatial structure. Cezanne elucidated his theory on art as follows: "There is absolutely no difference between drawing and color; while you paint, you draw as well; the more harmonious the color, the more distinct the drawing. When the color attains its full richness, the form is perfect too: to find the right contrast and relationships between the various tones, that is the secret of drawing and modelling" (quoted in A feast of colour, Post-Impressionnism from Private Collections, Noorbrabants Museum, 'sHertogenbosch, 1990, p. 66). It was not until Cezanne had reached the age of almost sixty and well over ten years after the completion of this painting that he was to gain any public recognition for his work. In 1895 the young Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard organised the first solo exhibition of Cezanne in his gallery, which he had opened two years before. However, Cezanne had long been highly regarded in avant-garde circles and his work hailed as a crucial point of reference. The critic Georges Lecomte wrote: "It is above all M. Cezanne who was one of the first annunciators of the new tendencies and whose effort exercised a notable influence in the impressionist evolution; his sober craft, his synthesis and his color simplifications, so surprising in a period particularly smitten with reality and analysis, his oft-reproached values, very soft, whose skilled play creates subtle and impeccable harmonies, contain and reveal the entire contemporary movement; they were a valuable education for all" (Georges Lecomte, "L'art contemporain," in La Revue Independante, Paris, April 1892). The first owner of this oil was the distinguished collector Auguste Pellerin who brought together over one hundred works by the artist, the greatest collection of Cezanne pictures ever assembled. In terms of quality and quantity it was, in the words of John Rewald, "an ensemble not even matched by Dr. Barnes." It is possible that Pellerin bought this picture from Ambroise Vollard, either at the time of the first Cezanne exhibition in 1895 or later through Bernheim-Jeune, who often received works by Cezanne on consignment from Vollard. This work is recorded in the Vollard Archives, photo no. 23 and 449 (annotated by Cezanne's son: L'Estaque, 1883). Provenance: (Possibly) Ambroise Vollard, Paris Bernheim-Jeune, Paris Auguste Pellerin, Paris Jean Victor Pellerin, Paris Sir Kenneth Clark, K.C.B., London Matthiesen Gallery, London Alex. Reid & Lefevre, London (acquired from the above in 1943) Mrs. S. Kaye, London (acquired from the above May 1943) Alex. Reid & Lefevre, London (acquired from the above in 1950) Thomas Agnew & Son, London (acquired from the above in 1952) Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. Payson, Manhasset, New York M. Knoedler and Co., Inc., New York Acquired by Reader's Digest in 1962 Exhibited: London, New Burlington Galleries, Masters of French 19th Century Painting, 1936, no. 87 London, Rosenberg and Helft Galleries, Cezanne: To Celebrate His Centenary, 1939, no. 5 Glasgow, Glasgow Art Gallery, The Spirit of France: French Painting of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 1943, no. 57 London, The Lefevre Gallery (Alex. Reid & Lefevre), Delacroix to Dufy, 1946, no. 4 London, The Lefevre Gallery (Alex. Reid & Lefevre), XIX Century French Masters, 1949, no. 3 New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Collected by Yale Alumni, 1960, no. 74 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paintings from Private Collections - Summer Loan Exhibition, 1960, no. 18 New York, M. Knoedler and Co., Inc., Reader's Digest Collection, 1963, p. 26 Tokyo, Palaceside Building, Forty Paintings from The Reader's Digest Collection, 1966, no. 7 New York, Wildenstein & Co. (traveling exhibition), Selections from The Reader's Digest Collection, 1985-86, pp. 16-17 Auckland City Art Gallery, The Reader's Digest Collection: Manet to Picasso, 1989, pp. 22-23 Literature: Lionello Venturi, Cezanne: Son Art - Son Oeuvre, Paris, 1936, vol. I, p. 154, no. 409; vol. 2, no. 409, illustrated pl. 114 Robert Radcliffe, Cezanne's Working Methods and their Theoretical Background, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London, 1960 Sandra Orienti, L'Opera completa di Cezanne, Milan, 1972, no. 376, p. 103 John Rewald, Cezanne: A Biography, New York, 1986, p. 275, illustrated p. 148 Brian Sewell, Tatler, February 1986, no. 20 John Rewald, The Paintings of Paul Cezanne, A Catalogue Raisonne, London and New York, 1996, vol. I, p. 352, no. 518; vol. 2, no. 518, illustrated p. 168.