EMULATION AND REPETITION IN 19TH CENTURY ART
 

Cézanne’s landscape painting titled Le Mont Sainte-Victoire vu de la carrière Bibemus (Figure 6) is another example of how his work was the beginning of modern art.  It has a high horizon line, a skewed perspective, and unique brushstroke techniques.  His decision to not use such descriptive detail is also very evident in this work.  The colors are bold and vibrant, but limited as well, consisting of mostly grays, oranges, and greens.  Similar geometric shapes are repeated throughout the entire painting, such as the blocks of green in the trees and the curvature of the mountain that is also present in other areas of the piece.            

This painting of Cézanne’s can be closely compared to that of Georges Braque’s Landscape at La Ciotat (Figure 7).  Braque was another modern artist like Picasso who was greatly influenced by Cézanne’s work.  This painting in particular consists of simple geometric shapes of color to portray a landscape.  Adapted from Cézanne, Braque explores his painting in such a way that “the forms seem to spill downward and outward toward the spectator from the hill at the top” (Reff, Rubin, Rewald 1977, 158-159).  He used a different perspective and placed the horizon line far above the center of the painting just as Cézanne did in Le Mont Sainte-Victoire vu de la carrière Bibemus.  Neither of these paintings have distinct foregrounds middle grounds or backgrounds; instead, the perspectives are distorted.  The different perspective in Braque’s adds more depth to the piece similar to the way Cézanne used perspective to add more volume and height to his painting.  This technique once again places the viewer directly into the painting.

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Paul Cézanne Le Mont Sainte-Victoire vu de la carrière Bibemus (1897))