Trees

Trees

photo: Bruce M. White
Full Screen

About This Work

Paul Cézanne (French, 1839–1906)
Trees, ca. 1891
Pencil
48.3 x 31.7 cm. (19 x 12 1/2 in.)

Provenance

V. Bloch, London. John Wyeth, New York. [Weyhe Gallery, New York]. Meier Bernstein, Brooklyn; Henry Pearlman, by 1968; Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, 1985.

Critical Perspective

The layers of graphite strokes found in many of Cézanne’s watercolors are laid bare in this spare study of trees, which reveals the essence of the artist’s graphic method. Cézanne used two basic kinds of marks: short sequences of hatching, signifying shadow and foliage, and contours, which range from sinuous edges, suggesting the forms of branches, to straight lines that indicate the trunks of the trees.