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In this article
Explore the artistPaul Cézanne →
A house below a mountain ridge
A pale farmhouse with a pink tiled roof stands among trees, at the foot of a long blue-grey ridge. Fields of ochre and green stretch away to the right. Paul Cézanne painted House in Provence between about 1886 and 1890, in the countryside near Aix-en-Provence where he lived and worked.
The painting belongs to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields.
A house made of blocks
The house is built from simple blocks of light and shadow: a sunlit wall, a shaded wall, a sloping roof. Windows are just dark rectangles. Cézanne treats the building almost like a geometric solid.
A ridge across the whole picture
The mountain ridge runs across the full width of the canvas, painted with parallel strokes of blue, violet and grey. It closes the space like a wall and gives the picture its calm, steady rhythm.
Bare trees and warm fields
To the right, thin bare trees stand in a field of orange earth. The warm colours of the ground contrast with the cool blue of the mountain.
Questions about House in Provence
Where is it?
Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Indianapolis.
When was it painted?
Between about 1886 and 1890.
Where is the scene?
In the Provençal countryside near Aix-en-Provence, Cézanne’s home region.
Why does it look so solid?
Cézanne built the house, trees and ridge from blocks and parallel strokes of colour.
Sources and image credit
Public-domain reproduction of House in Provence (about 1886 to 1890), via Wikimedia Commons. Detail images are crops of the same image; no reconstruction or upscaling.
