The Bay of Marseille, Seen from L'Estaque

c. 1885

Oil on canvas, 80.2 × 100.6 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago

Red-roofed houses give way to a deep blue bay and a low line of hills. He painted this bay over a dozen times in the 1880s.

The water turns into a single dense blue plane that binds the whole picture. It reads as flat pattern and as deep space at the same time.
It is likely the final canvas he painted at L'Estaque.
Look for four zones stacked up the canvas: buildings, water, mountains and sky.
Cracks in the sea expose many layers of blue, often brushed on before the last had dried.
It came to the Art Institute with the Martin A. Ryerson Collection.

It was shown in Amsterdam in 1911 and in the Museum of Modern Art's first loan show in 1929. In a letter to Pissarro, he compared the view to a playing card.

Image: The Art Institute of Chicago · CC0