The Gulf of Marseilles Seen from L’Estaque, Paul Cézanne, ca. 1885
By Nafissatou Fatima Sene
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is frequently recognized as one of the biggest and most prominent museums in the US, has a large and varied collection that covers centuries of creative progress. The museum offers a unique trip through art history, showcasing everything from Renaissance classics to contemporary modern art. Its several well-known works include Paul Cézanne’s The Gulf of Marseilles Seen from L’Estaque, an amazing landscape that represents the artist’s avant-garde use of color and shape and represents a turning point in the evolution of Post-Impressionist art.
Born in 1839, Paul Cézanne was a groundbreaking French painter whose creations served as a foundation for the shift from Impressionism in the 19th century to contemporary art in the 20th. Cézanne was born in Aix-en-Provence, and the surroundings of his home region in southern France had a profound impact on him. This would later become a major motif in a lot of his artwork. Even though Cézanne started with the Impressionists, he quickly aimed to create a more precise and sophisticated style of painting. He was more concerned with the underlying forms and structures in nature than his Impressionist contemporaries were with capturing the ephemeral effects of light.
Paul Cézanne’s The Gulf of Marseilles Seen from L’Estaque is one of the many artworks on display at the Metropolitan Museum. This piece can be seen on view in Gallery 826. In this image, we can see a village that represents the artist’s hometown, we can also notice a blue sea, and two mountains, one being colder than the other. While looking at this piece I felt like I was in different countries. The mountains made me think of the Antarctic and Egypt one side being white and the other brown. We can also see that there is a town, this town is surrounded by nature, we can see a lot of trees and grass, which makes us think about the countryside.
Furthermore, we can see that Cezanne uses softer, more fluid lines for the sky and water and then a harder brush for the trees and mountains. He uses very vibrant colors like greens, blues, and browns instead of using naturalistic colors, which give the scene a feeling of vitality and movement. The sky is a rich mix of colors that evokes changing light and atmosphere. The same thing is done with nature adding multiple colors to create a peaceful atmosphere.
I selected this picture due to its unique blend of abstraction and realism. At first glance, I thought the image was peaceful, but as I looked more closely, I began traveling and noticing similarities with various countries. I became more and more aware of how Cézanne’s singular style allows the observer to perceive the universe as a collection of forms, colors, and textures. That aroused more questions about the difference between impressionism and Contemporary art.
