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Rocks at Fontainebleau

1890s
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 619
In 1926 art critic Jules Meier-Graefe described Cézanne as an artist of “impeccable originality” because “it is not possible to avail yourself of El Greco’s language, if in using it, it is not invented again and again, by the user.” Cézanne studied black-and-white reproductions of works by El Greco, whose impact is most clear in his paintings from the late 1880s. This landscape—one of Cézanne’s most important—employs green, blue, and purple tints with an accent of golden sunlight at center to impart a shimmering vibrancy to the stones. Overall spatial recession is downplayed in favor of melding the foreground and background, resulting in the surface’s faceted effect. The thin, watercolor-like application of pigment, typical of Cézanne’s oils in the mid-1890s, lends the painting delicacy despite its monumentality.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Rocks at Fontainebleau
  • Artist: Paul Cézanne (French, Aix-en-Provence 1839–1906 Aix-en-Provence)
  • Date: 1890s
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 28 7/8 x 36 3/8 in. (73.3 x 92.4 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
  • Object Number: 29.100.194
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Studies of a tree (recto and verso), Paul Cézanne French, Graphite with green, blue and yellow washes (recto); graphite with green, blue and purple washes (verso)
Studies of a tree (recto and verso)
Paul Cézanne
1887–90
The Large Bathers (Les Baigneurs), Paul Cézanne French, Color lithograph on wove paper; first state of two
The Large Bathers (Les Baigneurs)
Paul Cézanne
ca. 1898
Portrait of Guillaumin with a Hanging Man, Paul Cézanne French, Etching and drypoint; second state of two (restrike)
Portrait of Guillaumin with a Hanging Man
Paul Cézanne
1873
Exhibition Announcement and Catalogue for a Cézanne show at the Galerie Vollard (May 9–June 10, 1898), Paul Cézanne French, Relief print
Exhibition Announcement and Catalogue for a Cézanne show at the Galerie Vollard (May 9–June 10, 1898)
Paul Cézanne
1898
Bathers (recto); Still Life (verso), Paul Cézanne French, Watercolor over graphite (recto); watercolor (verso)
Bathers (recto); Still Life (verso)
Paul Cézanne
ca. 1890 (recto) – 1900 (verso)

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