Chateau Noir 1904

Paul Cézanne painted this landscape, Chateau Noir, with oil on canvas, and he was really going for it with those brushstrokes! Just look at how those marks of green, blue and ochre build up the scene with their shifting colour. I can imagine Cézanne standing in front of his subject, squinting, trying to nail it with his brush, thinking about volume, trying to capture the essence of the place. Each stroke is like a little building block, trying to define form and depth. See how the heavy strokes around the building create a sense of solidity? He wasn’t just painting what he saw but how he felt, how he understood the structure and the light. Cézanne's work reminds me that artists are always learning from and reacting to one another. He’s in conversation with the old masters and anticipating the future of painting. He leaves us, as painters, a feeling that it’s all still possible.