Shop art print and framed art Le rocher rouge by Paul Cézanne

The Red Rock (Le Rocher rouge) is an oil on canvas measuring 92 × 68 cm, painted by Paul Cézanne around 1895-1900 and now in the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. Rewald dates this painting to around 1895. From this date onwards, as Michel Hoog observes, Cézanne's landscapes "lost the serenity, clear order and sunny light of earlier years". Around the Ais de Provençe, Cézanne sought out wild places where, in bold, agitated compositions, vegetation and rocks are swept together". This work passed through the hands of Paul Guillaume's widow, Domenica, and Ambroise Vollard. Le Rocher rouge is considered to be one of Cézanne's masterpieces of artistic maturity. In this boldly composed painting, the collapsed wall of reddish-brown rock, between red and orange, contrasts sharply in colour and execution with the blue sky and sprawling vegetation, which is painted in small, regular strokes. The colour applied in the form of parallel pinpricks accentuates the effect of optical vibration that the reverberation of the burning sun on the earth produces in the air. The idea of traditional perspective seems to have been abolished here, while the sense of strangeness comes from the intrusion of a rock at the top right of the composition, which appears almost abstract and geometric. In 1978, John Rewald stated that "from a compositional point of view, the totally asymmetrical and abrupt superimposition of the rock in this forest scene is a totally unusual element in Cézanne's landscapes", but [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the modern period. It belongs to the post-impressionism style.

 

« Le rocher rouge » is kept at Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris, France.

 

Find the full description of Le rocher rouge by Paul Cézanne on Wikipedia.