The Bridge and Dam at Pontoise (Le Pont et le déversoir à Pontoise)

This 1881 canvas of the Oise bridge and dam at Pontoise, held at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, was painted during Cézanne's last sustained period working with Pissarro in the Île-de-France. Pontoise was Pissarro's home territory and the center of their long friendship, and Cézanne visited repeatedly. The industrial structure of the dam — water control infrastructure built into the river — offered him the kind of solid geometric form he favored. This canvas bridges his Impressionist period and his mature structural phase: the handling is responsive and direct, but the structural analysis of the dam's forms is already more systematic than typical Impressionist treatment.

The dam's stone and timber structure is rendered with close formal attention, the masonry surfaces built from directional strokes. Water reflections below the dam create horizontal counterpoint to the vertical structures above. The overall palette is cool and northern in character, reflecting the Île-de-France light.