The Pigeon Tower at Bellevue

The conical roof of a pigeon tower rises above a screen of treetops in this Provençal landscape of 1890, painted at Bellevue near the village of Aix. Cézanne grouped the architecture and foliage into broad, blocky masses of green and earth, building the canvas through parallel diagonal strokes that give the view its seamless, woven texture. It belongs to the collection of his landscapes of the early 1890s in which he moved decisively toward the constructive, structural handling that later generations of painters would take as their point of departure.