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Rooftops of L’Estaque, 1883-85 by Paul Cézanne
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Rooftops of L’Estaque, painted by Paul Cézanne in 1883-85, looks down through a screen of dark cypress and olive branches onto the sun-bleached tile roofs of the Provençal fishing village, with the flat blue expanse of the Gulf of Marseille and the hazy hills beyond filling the upper half of the canvas. Cézanne returned again and again to L’Estaque throughout the 1880s, drawn to its motif of red-orange roofs set against blue water and to the way the high vantage point let him flatten sea, sky, and rooftops into overlapping planes of color. The painting belongs to the pivotal decade in which Cézanne moved away from the loose brushwork of Impressionism toward the more structural, geometric handling of form that would later inspire Picasso and Braque.
Artist: Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906). Date: 1883-85.
Rooftops of L’Estaque, 1883-85 by Paul Cézanne. Mediterranean Landscape Wall Art Canvas Print.