Landscape near Aix, the Plain of the Arc River by Paul Cezanne

Paul Cézanne's Landscape Near Aix, the Plain of the Arc River, was painted between 1892 and 1895, after the final Impressionist exhibition. However, Cézanne participated in only two Impressionist exhibitions, the first in 1874 and the third in 1877.

Landscape Near Aix, the Plain of the Arc River by Paul Cézanne (oil on canvas, 32-1/4x26 inches) can be seen at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art.

Fiercely independent, Cézanne followed his own path, seeking to turn his observations of nature into a painted structure of squarely brushed color and interlocking planes and volumes, as evidenced in Landscape Near Aix, the Plain of the Arc River. Paul Cézanne believed that painting reflected the interaction of the eye and the mind, the former taking in the image of nature and the latter translating it into color and form that suggest rather than mirror the perceptions of the surrounding world.

For more on Impressionist paintings, artists, and art history, see:

• Impressionism
• Vincent van Gogh
• Claude Monet

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Debra N. Mancoff, Ph.D., is an art historian and lecturer and the author of numerous books on nineteenth-century European and American paintings. She is a scholar in residence at the Newberry Library and an adjunct associate professor and adjunct lecturer at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.