The Bridge of Trois-Sautets (Le Pont des Trois-Sautets)

“Finally I must tell you that as a painter I am becoming more clear-sighted in front of nature, but that with me the realization of my sensations is always very difficult.”

Cézanne wrote this in a letter to his son Paul in the late summer of 1906, as he was laboring on "The Bridge of Trois-Sautets." The artist positioned himself on the bank of the river immediately below the bridge, surrounded by dense vegetation. The multiple tack holes in the corners of the paper attest to the great number of riverside sessions.

Beginning with a simple pencil sketch, Cézanne filled the sheet with transparent, overlapping washes he applied in chromatic sequences. He structured the image's space with changes in the density and intensity of color. The skeletal framework and the facets of color complement each other structurally but maintain their integrity. He rendered both the reflective surface and depths of the water with red-violet facets, while suggesting the cool, shadowy distances of the landscape with a concentration of blue-violet washes. From this vortex of color the triangular white mass of the bridge rises, bleached in the afternoon sun. The structural solidity of the bridge and the tree are negated by the blue dots and dashes approximating their profiles.