The Rule of Thirds

Paul Cezanne (1904 – 06) Mont Saint Victoire

Let’s take a closer look at this painting of Cezanne. If we talk about framing, we can easily see 3 different areas, the closest zone which is the forest, middle part houses and field and the background where we have the big mountain. The lines are pretty sharp, with sketchy brush strokes. Every zone is differentiated by colour as well. Cezanne this way spreads the elements according to the rule of thirds. As another characteristic of the rule of thirds, we can spot the big house in the lower left corner at the intersection of two lines. The level of details isn’t that great but you can still understand what the picture depicts.

  Regarding the viewer we can say he is pretty much in front of the painting, and has a clear view of the entire image. His attention will be drawn to the biggest element of the composition, the mountain, and will continue from there to go down. Then from there the motions of the viewer’s eye will go down, probably from left to right. As a result the bottom part of the image isn’t detailed, but in fact a bit dark.