art, but it portends the main elements of his mature style: shapes moulded by colour, dark outlines and the breaking down of traditional perspective. The works of CŽzanne’s youth, even though they are sometimes thought of as romantic, are characterized by the vigorous use of light. A great admirer of Delacroix, CŽzanne used chiaroscuro to convey the drama of his subject matter. But he quickly abandoned this technique, and, after the 1870s, he gradually gave up the thick, vigorously applied impasto, which he, rather humorously, called ‘couillarde’ (‘ballsy’). Little by little he moved away from painting the subjects that particularly appealed to him – images of orgies, murders and rapes – and began to work on depicting, in an as yet ill-defined way, something beyond the mere illustration of well-worn subjects.