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Felicia Limantoro
Professor Natilee Harren
Art History 54: Modern Art
7 December 2014
A Montage on Canvas: Paul Czannes Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Bibmus Quarry

Rising above the smooth, jutting rock face of the quarry, the crest becomes a magnet capping
the landscape, tying it together, and providing a sense of stability in contrast to the jumble of
rocks. The mountain acts as a counterpoint to the roving perspective across the foreground.1

Suppose someone travels someplace new. To be sure, the first thing he or she will do is
searching the travel destination on the Internet to find information about it. The information can
be in the form of text descriptions, map of the area, photographs of the scenes and, the most
helpful representation of all, the Street Viewa technology that provides a panoramic view of
the streets around the world, presenting a three-sixty-degree view of the area, giving the viewers
the experience of being there to see everything in person. Of course, compared to photographic
images, this technology provides better representation of the scenery.
More than a hundred years before this technology is invented, Paul Czanne had the very similar
idea to represent nature, yet lacking the sufficient medium to show it in tangible form.
Throughout the later period of his life, while aiming to communicate this idea, Czanne had
painted Mont Sainte-Victoire, a limestone mountain in south of France, over sixty times from
different angles. Like its name suggests, Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Bibmus Quarry is one
of the variants of Czannes Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings that depicts the mountain seen from
Bibmus quarry, an abandoned sandstone quarry with ochre-colored rocks nine miles from the
1 George S. Keyes, Reconsideration of Late Variants of Czanne's Theme of Mont Sainte-Victoire, Bulletin of
the Detroit Institute of Arts 77, no. (2003) : 34-35.

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mountain.2 Through the painting, Czanne strives to show the viewers the experience of seeing
the scenery by being therestanding on the quarry, witnessing the sceneryand how human
live vision works to perceive its surroundings, just like the Street View that is known today. To
show this experience of seeing, in this painting, Czanne employs two ways: the dominant use of
colors and the synthesis of the depicted scene.
In Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Bibmus Quarry, Czannes interest in representing how
human live vision works is apparent in the dominant use of colors. Here, colors are used not only
as colors but also to create outline and spatial qualities. As seen in the painting, there is no
outline that separates the trees from the rock, the rock from the mountain, and the trees from the
sky. The only part resembling an outline in the painting is the line that separates the mountain
and the sky, yet the use of colordark purpleto make this outline is apparent. So, the
distinctions among these objects can only be made because they have different colors. For
instance, the viewers know on which part of the canvas the rocks end and the mountain starts
because the color changes abruptly from reddish brown to purplish blue. This formal aspect
shows that Czanne deliberately does not use outline and uses colors to replace its function
instead.
Not only to replace the function of outline, Cezanne also uses colors to create spatial
qualitiestexture and depths. Unlike the Impressionists who submerge the object and cause it
to lose its proper weight,3 Czanne adds depth and texture while depicting the objects. The rock
texture is created using modulated colors from yellow, yellowish brown to reddish brown; the
mountain texture is also created from white, light purple, dark purple and a bluish purple. The

2 Baltimore Museum of Arts, Mont Sainte- Victoire Seen from the Bibmus Quarry, c. 1897 Paul Czanne
(French, 1839-1906), PDF.
3 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Czannes Doubt, Sense and Non-Sense (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
1964), 12

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use of black color to give shadowsmainly seen on the rocksadds depth to the objects. As a
result, these objects appear to have chunkiness, mass and a sense of three-dimensionality.
The use of colors to represent outline and spatial qualities is analogous to how human vision
works. Colors, spectrum of lights interacting with the light receptors, are the only thing human
eyes catch in order to perceive things. Objects appear recognizable before the eyes because they
have colors; objects appear different from one another because they have different colors. Even
the texture and depth of any objects can be judged by their colors. As what Merleau-Ponty stated
in his extensive essay about Czanne and his works, The outline should therefore be a result of
the colors if the world is to be given in its true density. For the world is a mass without gaps []
We see the depth, the smoothness, softness, the hardness of objects; Czanne even claimed that
we see the odor.4 Therefore, the dominant use of colors show Czannes interest to capture the
experience of seeing and to depict matter as it takes on form, the birth of order through
spontaneous organization.5
Secondly, Cezannes goal in this painting is shown in how he synthesizes the scene, which is
clear if we compare the painting with the photograph of the scene. By looking at the site
photograph6andthepainting,somedifferencescanbespotted.Themountainappearslargerin
thepainting,anditssummittipsmoreforwardly;theochrecoloredrocksarenowheretobeseen
in the photograph. These differences show that instead of trying to depict a faithful
representationofthescene,Czannesynthesizesthesceneandarrangesitsothatitdiffersfrom
thereality.
4 see Merleau-Ponty page 15
5 see Merleau-Ponty page 13
6 Phil Haber, Works of Art as Images: On the Use of Site Photographs for the Study of Paul Czannes Landscape
Paintings, Phil Habers Photography Notes (blog), November 27, 2011, http://philhaber.com/2011/11/27/in-thefootsteps-of-Czanne-part-iii-the-Bibmus-quarries.

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AccordingtoGoogleMap,thewalkingdistancefromBibmusquarryandMontSainte
Victoireis11.4km.Suchdistancemakesthesizeofthemountain,seenfromthequarry,appears
relativelysmallinthephotograph.Yet,inthepainting,Czannepaintsthemountainbigger,
making it seems close and pushing it forward, so it seems to be in the same plane as the
foreground.Thisperspectivemanipulationshowstheartistsinterestinlivedvision.Havingthe
abilitytochangetheopticalpoweroftheeyelenses,humanvisioncanzoomin,zoomoutand
focustoacertainobjectwithoutchangingvantagepoint.Ifoneweretostandinthequarry,
lookingcloselyatthemountainandfocusingoureyesonit,themountainwouldappearcloser
andbiggertohimorhereventhoughitisnotphysicallyatclosedistance.Bydepictingthe
mountainbiggerthanitactuallyshould,Cezanneillustratesthisexperienceofseeingasifthe
viewerswerethereinperson,theireyesfocusinginonthemountain.Healsoillustrateshowour
livedvisionisnotstaticbymakingthemountainsummittipforwardwhileinthephotographit
slopesbackwardasifhepaintedthelowerpartofthemountainfromoneangleandthesummit
fromanotherhigheranglewithoutseparatingtheobject.ThissupportsMerleauPontysideaof
Czanneslivedperspective,7whichstatesthatCzanneaimstoillustrateshowourvisionis
notstatic,butmovesaroundasobjectsappearbeforeoureyes,likewhathappenswhenwescroll
aroundourcomputerscreenwhileusingGoogleStreetView.
More particularly, [his way of projecting space in the painting] characterizes Czannes
perspective as the criterion of a visual experience that involved virtual movements around, and
behind, objects, that reveal their meanings for the embodied perceiver more explicitly than any
single, static, allocentric view can.8 Becausepaintingsarenotvideorecorderswenowhavethat
7 see Merleau-Ponty page 14
8 Paul Smith, Czannes Primitive Perspective, or the View from Everywhere, The Art Bulletin 95, no. 1
(2013) : 103

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can capture this experience more accurately, Czanne, while being constrained to the two
dimensionalityandstaticstateofthecanvas,representsthisscienceofvisionbymanipulating
theperspective.
TheconstraintscreatedbythemediumofpaintingstomaketangibleCzannesideaof
livedvisionforcehimtomanipulatenotonlytheperspectivalarrangementofthepaintingbut
alsotheobjectsdepicted.Asaforementioned,theochrecoloredrocksseeninthepaintingMont
SainteVictoire seen from Bibmus do not exist in the site photograph. Phil Haber, the
photographerofthesitephoto,travelledtoAix,Franceandwroteinhisblog,According to our
tour guide, the view painted by Czanne never actually existed even in Czannes day, and
Czanne simply created a composite picture showing the mountain together with rocks that were
visible only from a different part of the quarry. Not coincidentally, these ochre-colored rocks
depicted in the Mont Sainte-Victoire look similar to the rock formation painted in Czannes
other painting, Corner of Quarry (1900-02).9 So,deliberately,Czannesortofcopiedtherock
formation from this part of the quarry and pasted it into the Mont SainteVictoire,
incorporating it as a part of the mountain scenery. Given Czannes history of having an
underlyingphilosophybehindhispaintingsasevidentinhisownstatementtoStock,LeSalon,
IpaintasIsee,asIperceive 10itisclearthatthepurposeofhimdoingthecopypastinghas
todowiththeideaofrepresentingalivedvision.
Bymerelylookingatthephotographicimagesofthequarryor,say,atrompe-l'il painting of the
quarry, one could not experience seeing it as if he or she were there in person, experiencing the
sixty-degree view of the scene. Lacking the technology to create video, montage or Street View
9 see Phil Habers blog post
10 see Paul Smith page 102

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of the scene, and again, limited by the constraints of his medium, Czanne combines the
elements that represent the quarry (the rocks and the mountain) and tries to capture it in one
single image, as if he was trying to create multiple scenesa montageusing one single canvas
and some paints, a task now made easy by todays digital photography and such tools as
Photoshop.11
As we can judge from the Mont Sainte-Victoire, the way Czanne paints is analogous to
the way our lived vision works. Perceiving and distinguishing colors, focusing in, focusing out,
moving around and capturing everything from multiple angles, just like video cameras, or Street
View. All this is expressed in the way the colors are used to create outline and spatial qualities,
and the way the image is synthesized in the painting, both its objects and perspective. Way ahead
of his time, Czanne had the idea of representing nature in its fullness the way nature is
represented through technological medium we have nowadays. Differing in purpose, he veers
away from the Impressionists andbecause of his idea of combining different scenes into one
surfaceincites the emergence of new Modern art movements, such as the Cubist and the
Fauvist, playing his part in the movement of art toward abstraction.12

11 see Phil Habers blog post


12 Clement Greenberg, Modernist Painting, (1960)

Figure 1. Paul Czanne, Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from Bibmus Quarry, ca. 1897; oil
on canvas; 65.1 x 80 cm; Baltimore Museum of Art. Source: Ibiblio.org

SourcesConsulted
Baltimore Museum of Art. Mont Sainte- Victoire Seen from the Bibmus Quarry, c. 1897 Paul
Czanne (French, 1839-1906). PDF File.
Greenberg, Clement. Modernist Painting. (1960)
Haber, Paul. In the Footsteps of Czanne, Part III: The Bibmus Quarries. Phil Habers
Photography Notes. WordPress, November 27. 2011. Web. 7. Dec. 2014.
Keyes, George S. Reconsideration of Late Variants of Czanne's Theme of Mont SainteVictoire. Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts. 77.1/2. (2003) : 32-37. JSTOR. Web. 2.
Dec. 2014.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Czannes Doubt. Sense and Non-Sense. 1948. Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1964. 9-25. Print.
Orfila, Jorgelina. Works of Art as Images: On the Use of Site Photographs for the Study of Paul
Czannes Landscape Paintings. The International Journal of the Image. 2.1. (2012) : 1-11.
Art Source. Web. 2. Dec. 2014.
Smith, Paul. Czannes Primitive Perspective, or the View from Everywhere. The Art
Bulletin. 95.1. (2013) : 102-119. Art Source. Web. 2. Dec. 2014.

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