Mount Sainte-Victoire

Rising in soft pinks and lavenders against a cloudy sky, this is Mont Sainte-Victoire, the limestone peak that stood near Paul Cézanne's hometown of Aix-en-Provence in southern France. The artist painted this mountain more than thirty times over his life. He grew up in its shadow and felt a deep bond with it, treating it almost like an old friend he kept returning to. Below the glowing summit stretches the patchwork countryside of Provence, with a group of dark green trees anchoring the right edge of the scene.

Cézanne built the whole picture from small blocks of color set side by side, rather than smoothing his brushstrokes together. That method became his trademark, and it opened the door to a new way of thinking about painting. Younger artists such as Picasso and Matisse credited him as a major inspiration, and Picasso later bought a house near this same mountain partly as a tribute. What seems like a calm country view is really Cézanne working out how to see the world as pure shapes and color, an idea that helped push art toward the modern age.