Interpretive Resource

Only rarely did Cézanne play any prominent part in what we have come to call Impressionism. He did not develop his characteristic style until the mid-1880's, when he lived in the south of France far from the Impressionists, nor did his rejected Salon submissions of the 1860's, with their thickly painted surfaces and quasi-erotic subjects, have much to do with Impressionism. Yet, we must remember that Cézanne was not only a faithful pupil of Camille Pissarro, but also a central figure in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1874 and 1877. His House of the Hanged Man, 1874, and A Modern Olympia, 1872-73 both now in the Musee d’Orsay, Paris, were among the most discussed paintings in the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874.

Cézanne worked side by side with Pissarro several times during the 1870's, and Auvers: Village Panorama is among the most masterful from their first period together after the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune. Probably painted in 1873, it represents the village of Auvers just north of Paris along the Gise river. The village is contained within two parallel roads along a small alluvial plain between a steep hillside and the river. For this composition, Cézanne chose to climb one of the numerous paths leading up the hill, in order to look down on the rooftops of the village. From this vantage point, the landscape appears essentially unenterable; the path on which we presumably stand is visible only in the left corner of the painting, and we seem almost to float above the countryside like a disembodied eye.

What is remarkable about the painting is its complex, almost puzzlelike organization. Architecture and vegetation are pictorially interlocked to create a tensely articulated, geometrical surface. Only in the landscape background and the small portion of sky did Cézanne demonstrate any interest in pictorial space or atmosphere, and, in this way, this landscape is the opposite of those being made by his fellow Impressionists in the same years.

Neither signed nor dated, the painting is clearly unfinished. Parts of it — most notably the lower left corner and most of the upper third portion — were painted with thinned oil pigments applied with large brushes. The lower right corner, however, was thickly painted with several discrete layers of paint applied separately. Because it remained unfinished, it is probable that the painting was not among those chosen by Cézanne for exhibition. However, it is both a beautiful and original composition and a superb document for students of Cézanne’s painting technique.