Paul Cezanne

Large stones on the left and right guide our eyes into the painting. In his landscapes he showed a deep feeling for the force of nature in each sweeping line and chopping stroke of the brush, in the intense orange earth against the clear Provence skies. He believed that colour and line were inseparable and interwove them, applying one over the other in his work. He painted patches of red, brown, orange, and grey side-by-side and created 'weightless clouds' in the hazy-looking sky with short brushstrokes, in many shades of green and blue. His angled brush strokes set up a nervous sense of agitation in his late works like "Route Tournante". He made many landscape paintings of the area where he lived and through them he achieved great success even in his old age.

The painting is a circular composition. needed this solitude or he found it difficult getting on with others: being naturally ill at ease, neurotically sensitive and suffering from outbursts of temper. The forms of foliage, rocks and road are so simplified and generalised that they appear almost abstract. He used colour not to fill in outlines, but, as a true colourist used it to create forms. This may be a combination of his irascible temperament with an ageing painter's awareness of the need to realise his objectives while he still had time. Many of these landscapes like "Route-Tournante" pulse and glow with his free and painstaking analysis. The way in which he painted light inspired younger artists, such as Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, who searched for similar ways to express themselves.

CÉzanne was a great painter of the immediate landscape of Provence around his home, often painting the view seen from his studio. The quality of this landscape - the light, the colour of the earth, the roll of the hills affects the way the artist reacts to it.