Cézanne used three primary vantage points for these paintings: near his brother's property in Bellevue, near Bibemus quarry, and in Les Lauves.

[1] Only half a year after the opening of the Aix-Marseille train line on October 15, 1877, in a letter to Émile Zola dated April 14, 1878, Cézanne praised Mont Sainte-Victoire, which he viewed from the train while passing through the railway bridge at Arc River Valley, as a "beau motif (beautiful motif).

"[6] The whole series embodies Cézanne's struggle to mold nature into art through geometric forms and effects of color.

He inherited his family estate after the death of his father, and was free of financial worries for the first time in his life, making him able to focus on art, which he pursued with "extraordinary patience and self-discipline.

[3] While Monet tried to finish landscape paintings in single sessions to capture the moment, Cézanne returned to Mont Sainte-Victoire repeatedly to accumulate a deep idea of the subject.

He distorted the forms of Mont Sainte-Victoire subtly to create clear geometric shapes and pictorial balance.

It did not attract widespread attention, but it proved influential on younger artists, and Cézanne gradually acquired a "legendary reputation."

Cézanne specifically, in these paintings, explored the relationship between surface and depth, between plane and color, drawing tension between order and emotion.

He was convinced that each new painting of Mont Sainte-Victoire would offer some new insight into "another facet of its meaning or character," with the mountain assuming an abstract, elusive appeal.

[1] Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings during this period generally displayed an extended profile of the mountain dominating the familiar valley.

Many features "assume the weight of its history," like the train trestle that transforms into an ancient aqueduct, resembling a Roman road.

"[6] In another, all the colors are more translucent, creating a sense of awe and structure sometimes aided by Chinese white paint, which had an "opalescent" quality.

[6] In the painting Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from the Bibémus Quarry, c. 1897, as an example from this period, Cézanne concentrated on the peak of the mountain, floating above the reddish rocks below it.

The mountain rises above the smooth, angular quarry, the crest tying the landscape together and providing a sense of stability.

[2] In another example of this period, Mont Sainte-Victoire seen from above the Tholonet Road, c. 1896-8, the mountain looms overhead, effectively displacing the sky.

[2] As a final example, in Cézanne's canvas at the Musée d'Orsay, the viaduct is included, as usual, but the road was obscured, reorienting the features of the landscape.

[3] This period was defined by more saturated colors, less stable compositions, and a more clear division of forms into smaller parts, as dictated by Cézanne's thick brushstrokes.

[1] In the paintings Cézanne did from this period, the mountain was often shown in dramatic profile, the peak rising over the surrounding plain, which spread out in a patchwork of farm buildings, trees, and fields.

Cézanne emphasized the roughness of nature in these paintings by combining the stark, architectural forms of the landscape and mountain with the wild, lyrical vegetation.

Much of the canvas is left bare in the energy and excitement in which Cézanne produced the painting, but still, the small farmhouse is clearly defined, establishing rhythm and recession.

Cézanne's vision for the painting seems to have shifted as he worked on it, as evidenced by the additional strips of canvas and changing energy and style of brushstrokes.

[6] Lionello Venturi, for example, described the Mont Sainte-Victoire paintings as part of a "cosmic" creation, noting that "The structure is more and more implied, and less and less apparent.

What élan, what an imperious thirst for the sun, and what melancholy, in the evening, when all this weightiness falls back to earth...These masses were made of fire.

There above us is Plato's cave: see how, as large clouds pass by, the shadow that they ast shudders on the rocks, as if burned, suddenly swallowed by a mouth of fire.

"[3] Such statements capture how Cézanne imbues Mont Sainte-Victoire with a sense of urgency and drama, and how he hoped his paintings would be received by viewers.

[3] Indeed, this perception has been echoed by critics like Fritz Novotny, who have argued that, in these works, Cézanne gave up real truth to nature.