 Paul Cézanne (French, 1839–1906)
A Copse, c. 1890
Oil on canvas
Purchase, Robert Allerton Fund and donations from Mr.
and Mrs. Henry B. Clark, Jr. and Academy friends,
1980 (4845.1)
Paul Cézanne sought to delve beneath external
appearances to express the essential order and stability
of nature. In this painting of a thicket, he has carefully
ordered his forms, building them into a structural whole
by interweaving a limited palette–green, blue, violet,
ochre, and tan–into a shimmering arrangement of
parallel brushstrokes. Cézanne drew with color,
creating movement and depth as tones advance and
recede. Patches of sky are visible through the foliage,
itself a magnificent tangle of opposing triangles that
exemplifies the dynamics of Cézanne's compositions. |