Country House by a River

The second half of the 1880s was a particularly difficult time for Cézanne. In 1885 he appears to have had an abortive romantic entanglement, which left him agitated and unbalanced. Than, in 1886, his childhood friend and strongest source of support, Emile Zola, published L’Oeuvre, a novel that depicted a Cézannelike painter who failed to realize his genius and ended his life in suicide. The artis…