It is well known that Paul Cézanne made a point of  going painting outdoors on overcast days and yet his late paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire seem to be imbued with the most gorgeous light. To my mind, some of these are amongst the greatest paintings ever produced. Painting that is distilled down to its purist form. They could live quite happily alongside Beethoven's late string quartets or piano sonatas. What is interesting, is that I feel as though I have little interest in transient or temporary things such as light or mood or atmosphere. At least, as a starting point.

The immense architecture of the mountain doesn't change when it is bathed in sunlight. In the case of Cézanne, light is colour. It is almost a cerebral light that comes about as a result of  using colour in order to understand and define form. That said, I love light. We all do.

In my own painting, the influence of Cézanne is sometimes obvious. The Idwal Slabs (seen in the picture below) has been a subject for me for many years. The Idwal Slabs form one of the most magnificent swathes of mountainside in the country. Vast sheets of grey rock, set at every imaginable angle, interrupted by patches of grass and held together with a strong linear structure that goes deep within the mountain.

It would seem that we are able to use light and dark to define form, at least to the extent that we use tone within drawing. To use colour successfully to describe light seems much more difficult.

This, for me, is the ongoing struggle with colour.

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