The Mountain

Paul Cézanne Mont Sainte-Victoire (La Montagne Sainte-Victoire) via Wikimedia Commons

Paul Cézanne painted Mont Sainte-Victoire over sixty times. He painted it from different places and different perspectives. At times he painted it with oils and at other times with watercolors. As he painted it, he considered the essence of the mountain and the nature of its appearance. He wanted to move beyond making attractive images in order to express the nature of existence itself. When he painted the mountain, he observed that it remained constant in its essence though its appearance changed constantly. Painting the mountain led him to struggle with a deeper question: how do I realize what exists through what I perceive?

[This blog post is an exerpt. You can read the rest of the essay in the book Edible Thistles.]

---

Additional Resources

• Paul Cézanne at WikiArt: https://www.wikiart.org/en/paul-cezanne

• Wallace Stevens at Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wallace-stevens

• Jorge Guillén at Zenda (in Spanish): https://www.zendalibros.com/5-poemas-de-jorge-guillen/