Road near L'Estaque, 1908 by Georges Braque

Georges Braque's early paintings reveal the influence of the Impressionists, in particular that of Claude Monet and of Camille Pissarro. A little later he experienced a revelation as he studied the firm structures and union of colour and tonal values in the paintings of Paul Cézanne.

Braque's style began a slow evolution as he became influenced by Paul Cézanne who had died in 1906 and whose works were exhibited in Paris for the first time in a large-scale, museum-like retrospective in September 1907. The 1907 Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d'Automne greatly affected the avant-garde artists of Paris, resulting in the advent of Cubism.

Road near L'Estaque, 1908 makes visible Cézanne's influence on Braque's developing later Cubist style. Braque employs Cézanne's progressive gradations of color and flattened, inaccessible spaces. As Cézanne often did, Braque left an area of canvas unpainted, in the limb of a tree. Road near L'Estaque looks forward to Cubism in its significantly restricted palette of colors, crowded space, and sharp geometric forms.