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Lot Essay
Executed in 1880-85, this watercolor anticipates Cézanne's sous-bois compositions of the 1890s, notable for their intricate structures, involving the uprights and diagonals provided by the harmonic juxtaposition of slender tree-trunks set amongst the thick forest undergrowth. He found many such secluded spots in the woods surrounding Fontainebleau and the forest of Château Noir close to Aix-en-Provence, which, alongside the carrières de Bibémus and the Mont Sainte-Victoire, was the artist's favorite haven in native Provence.
The lyrical vagueness of the composition - an almost abstract interplay of shapes and colours - makes it impossible to identify the exact landscape depicted in this drawing. Nor does the inscription to the right of the sheet, which offers a very important biographical detail, solve the riddle of the landscape's topographical identification. The left margin of the sheet is taken over by a draft of a letter, apparently to the prefect of Paris, requesting the endorsement of a signature. This letter was most probably written in connection with the artist's marriage to Hortense Fiquet - the mother of his child Paul - which took place in Aix-en-Provence on 28 April 1886.
Often regarded as his own private activity, Cézanne's watercolor output increased towards the mid 1880s, and from 1885 onwards these pictures show a free and confident style. Cézanne's landscape sketches are testimony to this, and the Bodmer drawing shows him loosening his square, diagonal brushwork of the 1870s and adopting a softer, yet still lucidly structured style. One can see how Cézanne's eye was instinctively attracted to the rhythmic arrangement of the verticals of the tree trunks, their outlines drawn swiftly in pencil. His pencil lines do not imprison the forms, but merely suggest them, and elsewhere indicate shaded areas to guide the brush. In the 1880s Cézanne began to use softer, more opaque colours to create a delicately decorative impression. Transparent washes of blue, violet and green convey the effect of light and foliage, with untouched areas of white paper also playing a descriptive role. As Rewald commented:'It is one of the unceasing mysteries of Cézanne's watercolours that delicate washes of blue, pink, yellow and green - lightly scattered across a white sheet - can conjure up an image provided with all the essentials and devoid of anything superfluous. In front of such a superb achievement, the question of 'finish' or 'unfinish' becomes academic' (J. Rewald, op. cit., p. 199).
The lyrical vagueness of the composition - an almost abstract interplay of shapes and colours - makes it impossible to identify the exact landscape depicted in this drawing. Nor does the inscription to the right of the sheet, which offers a very important biographical detail, solve the riddle of the landscape's topographical identification. The left margin of the sheet is taken over by a draft of a letter, apparently to the prefect of Paris, requesting the endorsement of a signature. This letter was most probably written in connection with the artist's marriage to Hortense Fiquet - the mother of his child Paul - which took place in Aix-en-Provence on 28 April 1886.
Often regarded as his own private activity, Cézanne's watercolor output increased towards the mid 1880s, and from 1885 onwards these pictures show a free and confident style. Cézanne's landscape sketches are testimony to this, and the Bodmer drawing shows him loosening his square, diagonal brushwork of the 1870s and adopting a softer, yet still lucidly structured style. One can see how Cézanne's eye was instinctively attracted to the rhythmic arrangement of the verticals of the tree trunks, their outlines drawn swiftly in pencil. His pencil lines do not imprison the forms, but merely suggest them, and elsewhere indicate shaded areas to guide the brush. In the 1880s Cézanne began to use softer, more opaque colours to create a delicately decorative impression. Transparent washes of blue, violet and green convey the effect of light and foliage, with untouched areas of white paper also playing a descriptive role. As Rewald commented:'It is one of the unceasing mysteries of Cézanne's watercolours that delicate washes of blue, pink, yellow and green - lightly scattered across a white sheet - can conjure up an image provided with all the essentials and devoid of anything superfluous. In front of such a superb achievement, the question of 'finish' or 'unfinish' becomes academic' (J. Rewald, op. cit., p. 199).