After his mother’s death in 1897, the Jas de Bouffan was sold, and CŽzanne worked at several new sites, including the Ch‰teau Noir and the quarry at BibŽmus. These landscapes of forests and rocks were framed to give the impression that the subjects so completely filled the canvas that all the elements were fused together in the painted area. Patches of colour were built up methodically to create the image. The panoramic views of Mont Sainte-Victoire are kaleidoscopes of colour, in which the outlines appear and disappear in the shimmering light and air. The pyramidal shape of the mountain rises from the coloured magma as CŽzanne creates the impression of the elements before they formed the landscape visible today. He concentrated on organizing the subject matter on the canvas through a technique that did not depend on a descriptive vision but that was not, at the same time, non-referential. Although he broke down the subject into coloured planes, he did not ignore the third dimension – volume – and, as he explained in a letter to Bernard, he established a system of colour equivalence that allowed him to translate visual sensations into gradations of colour. Returning constantly to the same subjects, he
