A window on reality: Paul Cézanne's Avenue at Chantilly

Spring may well be giving way to summer in the last work of art in our seasonal series. Paul Cézanne has to be included, however, because he is the greatest modern landscape artist. The fascination of this vista down a woodland walk in a cultivated park is deep and emotional. Cézanne’s blocks and planes of colour go beyond the immediacy of impressionism to convey a mysteriously personal, psychological relationship to what he sees – the avenue seems to lead to a secret, a revelation, a truth. Nature, just as it did in Botticelli’s Primavera, reflects a state of mind Illustration: The National Gallery