Paul Cézanne was one of the most important painters of its time. Not only did he created some of the most iconic pieces of the Impressionist movement, but he was also responsible for making a connection between the late XIX century artists and the early XX century new movement heads like Picasso and Matisse.

Around 1860, he started what would become a profound and vital friendship with Camille Pissarro. At first, Pissarro and Cézanne had a mentor-student kind of relationship, and at this time, they traveled a lot together doing landscape studies and producing pieces. Pissarro had an essential role in Cézanne’s formation as an artist. Later, Cézanne started exploring figures and developing a different way of looking at architecture and landscapes. Cézanne and Pissarro started working as friends side by side, and no longer as mentor and pupil.

This landscape was produced between the years of 1883 and 1885. Cézanne’s family had just moved to Provence a few years earlier and was established there. In this period, Cézanne steps away from the Parisian Impressionist scene and turns his attention to mountains and seascapes.

This piece portrays a landscape seen by the view of a person who is on top of a hill. On the valley in front of them, there is a small village, and above it is the sea represented with a high horizon line. Far in the back, we can see a small rocky isle.

The painting is framed by tree trunks that are on the foreground. Cézanne would often try to have a different perspective on how to paint landscapes. He spent years trying to make a connection between the realism of the observation with the simplification of shapes: spheres, cones, and cylinders. The thin brown trunks are crown with a leafy treetop painted with small diagonal brushstrokes of dark green and yellow. The shape and direction of the brush strokes create the stained glass aspect.

The trees are based on a hill made of light soil, painted in lighter shades of brown and beige. The hill leads into the village where we can see several rooftops, all portrayed in a beautiful tone of peachy orange, showing the vivid roof tiles illuminated by a bright sun.

This natural and warm palette concentrated on the bottom half of the painting contrasts with the blue sea and sky. Behind the trees and over the houses, the sea is painted on with light and vivid shade of royal blue, with horizontal brush movements. Some spots of lighter and darker shades of color create an idea of movement and waves. The sky is painted on an even brighter shade of a Pigeon Blue.