Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley

1882–85

Oil on canvas, 65.4 × 81.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A river valley stretches toward a lone mountain, split down the middle by one great tree, with a railroad viaduct crossing it. It shows his search for a lasting order beneath nature's surface.

Fields, roads and hills are laid out as layered horizontal planes that step back toward the mountain. The depth comes from this ordered structure, not from passing effects of light.
He painted it from a hillside at Montbriand, the estate his sister owned.
Look at the viaduct: its arches recall a Roman aqueduct, as in Poussin's classical landscapes.
Of his several views from this spot, it is the most fully worked.
It entered the Met in 1929 with the H. O. Havemeyer Collection.

The valley lies near Aix-en-Provence, his hometown, and he had known it since childhood. Between 1882 and 1890 he drew and painted this site again and again.

Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access · CC0