In [Houses at L'Estaque] all the sensuous elements of [Braque's] previous years have been banished; color has been reduced to a severe combination of browns, dull greens and grays...[T]he curving rhythms have given way to a system of verticals and horizontals, broken only by the forty-five degree diagonals of roof-tops and trees. All details have been eliminated and the foliage of the trees reduced to a minimum to reveal the geometric severity of the houses. These are continued upwards almost to the top of the canvas so that the eye is allowed no escape beyond them. The picture plane is further emphasized by the complete lack of aerial perspective (the far houses are, if anything, darker and stronger in value than the foreground house), and by the fact that occasionally contours are broken and forms opened up into each other. There is no central vanishing point; indeed in many of the houses all the canons of traditional perspective are completely broken.