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In the last years of his life Cézanne frequently painted the great Mont Sainte-Victoire, which rises high above the plain of his native Aix-en-Provence. Through the use of separate brushstrokes to build up his compositions from flat individual flecks of colour he pushed the Impressionist’s dissolution of form a stage further; the underlying forms of the landscape, dominant colour harmonies and compositional structure all unfold with just a few strokes of the brush. Every subsequent step refines and concentrates on these pre-established harmonies. In the Zurich painting, a very late work whose surface reveals small uncovered areas of the lightly primed canvas, one senses the breathing receptivity of Cezanne’s perceptual realization imbued with the crystal clarity of a cosmic vision.
