Cézanne, Paul - L’Estaque, Melting Snow (1870)

The Cold Panic of L'Estaque

France was a powder keg in 1870. The Second Empire was screaming toward a violent end at the hands of the Prussians while Napoleon III sat as a captive. In Paris the streets were preparing for a siege. Paul Cézanne didn't stay to watch the collapse. He fled south to the Mediterranean coast to avoid the draft. He wasn't looking for a vacation. He was hiding.

Melting Snow in L'Estaque is the sound of heavy boots on frozen mud and the sharp crack of a winter branch. The air in the south smelled of wet pine and wood ash. Communication at the time was a mess of telegrams and frantic couriers. The vibe of this canvas is a cold panic disguised as a landscape. While the kingmakers were hiding in their chateaus Cézanne was hacking at a canvas in a single session to vent his isolation.

This isn't the soft light of typical Impressionism. The dark shadows and distorted perspective lean hard toward Expressionism. The thick black outlines anticipate the structural obsession of his later career. He captured the fleeting winter light not with a delicate touch but with the desperate energy of a man outrunning a war. It is a brutal piece of work from his dark period. It proves that even when the world is burning a man with a brush can find a way to scream in silence.

References

Cézanne, P. Letters. Edited by John Rewald. New York: Da Capo Press, 1995.

Rewald, John. The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné. New York: Abrams, 1996.

Athanassoglou-Kallmyer, Nina. Cézanne and Provence: A Painter in His Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

Danchev, Alex. Cézanne: A Life. New York: Pantheon, 2012.

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