L'Estaque, Melting Snow
Encyclopedia
L'Estaque, Melting Snow is a c. 1871 oil-on-canvas painting by French Post-Impressionist
artist Paul Cézanne
. It shows a view from the outskirts of L'Estaque
, a small village near Marseille
, with a steep hillside covered in a drift of melting snow underneath a foreboding dark grey sky. Filled with intense emotion, the painting has been described as similar to the work of Vincent van Gogh
the following decade, and a painting more formally similar to early 20th-century than contemporaneous art. L'Estaque, Melting Snow was painted in a single session. It is one of only two snow-laden winter subjects Cézanne painted.
Cézanne moved to Provence
in 1870 to evade military service during the Franco-Prussian War
. He soon moved to L'Estaque, where he painted a number of landscapes. Critics differ in their interpretation of this painting, some see it as wholly personal, other as a response to the war with Prussia. Supporting the latter view, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka
saw the painting as making a statement on social and political transformation and wrote of the political context in which it was created, "what is our response to those red-roofed houses which are held, as if in a vice, between a leaden sky and a sliding block of snow?"
The colors are oppressively dark, while the thickly painted, quick brushwork adds to the urgent violence of the scene. With the exception of the red rooftops and the greens of the trees in the foreground, the colors and the tones are monotonous and gloomy. The whites, greys and blacks are used mostly for emotional impact. Though L'Estaque, Melting Snow evidences Cézanne's new-found facility in depicting the deep space of a landscape, it is marked by an emotional intensity closer in spirit to the turbulence of his early figure works than to the structural complexity of the later landscape paintings.
The diagonal of the hill cuts across the painting from left to right, dividing avalanche on one side and gloom on the other. The hill sweeps down until it rests just above the red roof of a barely visible house at its foot—an effect that art critic Meyer Schapiro
described as giving "a rushing force to the image." The dark brown trees on the slope's ledge have twisted trunks and rest on unsteady ground, while the trees in the mid-ground are painted in black and form a descending arch which moves inwards towards the center of the canvas before merging with the ominous overhanging clouds. Given the angle of the hill and the depth from which the houses are viewed, it is difficult to imagine where the observer is supposed to be positioned.
Writer Ronald Berman drew comparison between Cézanne's treatment of this landscape and the way Ernest Hemingway
imbues the Irati River in Navarre
with emotional scope in his 1926 novel on the lost generation
, The Sun Also Rises
. In both, the landscape is seen subjectively, and the viewpoint of the observer is paramount; the landscape is not just a thing in itself, but a subjective object seen differently by each character. According to Berman, "The foreground is the observer's space". In the Cézanne, nature becomes an extension of the observer's mental landscape, and in Hemingway it is a representation of each viewer's need for inclusion within the natural order.
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
artist Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
. It shows a view from the outskirts of L'Estaque
L'Estaque
L'Estaque is a small French fishing village just west of Marseille. Administratively, it belongs to the commune of Marseille.Many artists of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist periods visited or resided there or in the surrounding area. Many of them painted scenes of the village, the road...
, a small village near Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, with a steep hillside covered in a drift of melting snow underneath a foreboding dark grey sky. Filled with intense emotion, the painting has been described as similar to the work of Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
the following decade, and a painting more formally similar to early 20th-century than contemporaneous art. L'Estaque, Melting Snow was painted in a single session. It is one of only two snow-laden winter subjects Cézanne painted.
Cézanne moved to Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
in 1870 to evade military service during the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
. He soon moved to L'Estaque, where he painted a number of landscapes. Critics differ in their interpretation of this painting, some see it as wholly personal, other as a response to the war with Prussia. Supporting the latter view, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka
Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka is a Polish-born American philosopher, one of the most important and continuously active contemporary phenomenologists, founder and president of The World Phenomenology Institute, and editor of the book series Analecta Husserliana, presently published by...
saw the painting as making a statement on social and political transformation and wrote of the political context in which it was created, "what is our response to those red-roofed houses which are held, as if in a vice, between a leaden sky and a sliding block of snow?"
The colors are oppressively dark, while the thickly painted, quick brushwork adds to the urgent violence of the scene. With the exception of the red rooftops and the greens of the trees in the foreground, the colors and the tones are monotonous and gloomy. The whites, greys and blacks are used mostly for emotional impact. Though L'Estaque, Melting Snow evidences Cézanne's new-found facility in depicting the deep space of a landscape, it is marked by an emotional intensity closer in spirit to the turbulence of his early figure works than to the structural complexity of the later landscape paintings.
The diagonal of the hill cuts across the painting from left to right, dividing avalanche on one side and gloom on the other. The hill sweeps down until it rests just above the red roof of a barely visible house at its foot—an effect that art critic Meyer Schapiro
Meyer Schapiro
Meyer Schapiro was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for forging new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art...
described as giving "a rushing force to the image." The dark brown trees on the slope's ledge have twisted trunks and rest on unsteady ground, while the trees in the mid-ground are painted in black and form a descending arch which moves inwards towards the center of the canvas before merging with the ominous overhanging clouds. Given the angle of the hill and the depth from which the houses are viewed, it is difficult to imagine where the observer is supposed to be positioned.
Writer Ronald Berman drew comparison between Cézanne's treatment of this landscape and the way Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
imbues the Irati River in Navarre
Navarre
Navarre , officially the Chartered Community of Navarre is an autonomous community in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and Aquitaine in France...
with emotional scope in his 1926 novel on the lost generation
Lost Generation
The "Lost Generation" is a term used to refer to the generation, actually a cohort, that came of age during World War I. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway who used it as one of two contrasting epigraphs for his novel, The Sun Also Rises. In that volume Hemingway credits the phrase to...
, The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway about a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early and enduring modernist novel, it received...
. In both, the landscape is seen subjectively, and the viewpoint of the observer is paramount; the landscape is not just a thing in itself, but a subjective object seen differently by each character. According to Berman, "The foreground is the observer's space". In the Cézanne, nature becomes an extension of the observer's mental landscape, and in Hemingway it is a representation of each viewer's need for inclusion within the natural order.
Sources
- Adriani, Götz. Cezanne Paintings. Harry N. Abrams., Inc., 1995. ISBN 0-8109-4026-4
- Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Nina. Cézanne and Provence. University of Chicago Press, 2003. ISBN 0-2264-2308-5
- Schapiro, Meyer. Cézanne. Harry N. Abrams, 2004. ISBN 0-8109-9146-2
- Tymieniecka, Anna-Teresa. Analecta Husserliana, Volume 81 Springer Publishing, 2001. ISBN 978-1402017094