In 1919, Chaim Soutine left Paris for Céret, a small town in the French Pyrenees, not far from the Spanish border, where Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque had previously painted. Soutine lived in Céret for the following three years, returning to Paris only periodically. During this time, he painted some 200 canvases, most of them landscapes. This view of the town features a bright palette and bold construction. Soutine’s handling of paint becomes convulsive: mountains, gorges, and rivers are translated into swerving, contentious ribbons of thickly applied pigment. Soutine’s most exuberant canvases can be linked to examples by Post-Impressionist painters such as Vincent van Gogh, and are thought to have influenced young American abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline.