Lot Essay
The extraordinary modernity of this composition and the innovative exploration of space it displays marks this picture as an important stepping stone in the development of Cézanne's mature landscape style. Gone is the impressionist technique assimilated from Pissarro in the Auvers years, instead, here is an analytic vision that is Cézanne's alone. Albert Chatelet observes it is the strong geometry and powerful central vertical axis provided by the tree which makes the picture so 'modern' in the 1954 Orangerie exhibition catalogue, "Rarement Cézanne a été plus avant dans le dépouillement des formes. Tout semble ici bâti avec des droites et le tronc de l'arbre, qui se prolonge par son reflet dans le bassin, semble souligner un axe de la composition. Mais c'est de cette sécheresse même, tempérée par la souplesse de la touche, que naît ici la poésie de la vision' (Orangerie de Tuileries, Hommage à Cézanne, Paris, 1954, p. 16). Elsewhere Kenneth Clark suggests that Cézanne achieves in this picture "an effect of depth by perfect understanding of the colour value." (Landscape Painting, New York, 1950, p. 123).
Significantly, it was this painting which converted a previously sceptical Roger Fry into an ardent admirer of Cézanne when it was one of two pictures exhibited in London in 1906 at the Exhibition of the International Society (the other was an early still life, Venturi 70). Fry wrote in the Athenaeum on 13 Jan. 1906, "We confess to having been hitherto sceptical about Cézanne's genius, but these two pictures reveal a power which is entirely distinct and personal, and though the artist's appeal is limited, and touches none of the finer issues of the imaginative life, it is nonetheless complete." Fry had further warmed to Cézanne's genius and the quality of this picture by 1927 when he wrote, "the bleak nakedness of a wintry landscape is forcibly expressed. Here the rectilinear structure and the preponderance of right angles is almost disconcerting at first, but we feel that Cézanne has accepted this bleakness of the scene with a sort of austere voluptuousness. The exaltation of the artist's mood, his passionate emotion, translate themselves everywhere in the rich elaboration of the pigment. These bare surfaces of grey wash give evidence of obstinate and patient research into all their variations of surface and colour. Again, it is by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations that he is able to construct for the imagination this immensity of space filled with light and vibrating with life" (R. Fry, Cézanne, a study of his development, London, 1927, p. 62).
Le Bassin du Jas de Bouffan shows that by 1878 Cézanne was outstandingly original in his artistic vision, having outgrown Impressionism and being prepared to break with the spatial values proscribed by Renaissance tenets. The tendency to geometrize compositional elements leads him to depict spatial depth in a new fashion. The power of his analytic mind is now the dominant force imposing its order over the landscape. Here Cézanne has seized upon the innovative device of the upright central tree, a device which looks forward to his later Mont St. Victoire series. From this central axis the landscape is laid out in a systematic rectilinear pattern where the cool colours of the wintry landscape exactly match the cool order of the artistic vision. Improvisation and frivolity is excluded in a composition of total serenity which Cézanne felt was so completely resolved that he appended that rare mark of approbation, his signature.
This picture of Le Bassin du Jas de Bouffan continued to be of further inspiration to Cézanne since he executed circa 1883-87 a watercolour closely based on the picture (Oskar Reinhart Collection, am Römerholz, Winterthur; J. Rewald, Paul Cézanne, the watercolours, London, 1983, no. 155, p. 123). The watercolour, worked with mainly pale, delicate colour washes, concentrates on the arabesque forms of the central tree, excluding the water reflections and certain elements of the distant landscape. Le Jas de Bouffan, the country retreat of the Cézanne family was bought by Cézanne's father Louis Auguste, a banker, in 1859. For the next forty years, the house was the stable point in Cézanne's often restless life, providing him not only with a much loved home, where he executed some of his earliest works, but also with a studio where he painted the numerous pictures of Le Jas de Bouffan and its estate. The grand, but neglected, Louis XIV mansion, former residence of the Governor of Provence, was situated about half a mile west of Aix-en-Provence, Cézanne's native town, and was surrounded by grounds covering some 37 acres of field, farms and profitable vineyards. 'Low walls surrounded the property. In the house the big hall on the ground level and several rooms above were at first left closed up; the family still used 14 rue Matheron for the town and went out to the Jas for weekends or for the summer. They could bathe in the fair-sized pool with its stone dolphins and limes; indeed the mansion had no other bath. At the rear stretched a fine avenue of chestnuts, much loved by Paul. Large, square and plain in structure, the house had once been stuccoed yellow; now it was faced with a tawny-grey cement; red tiles covered the low-pitched roof. A drive led up to the main entry on the north; a broad terrace flanked the south wall. On the ground floor a hall ran across the house, with stairway near the front door; to the west a big salon with rounded end ran the full length of the house; across from the hall lay dining room and kitchen. The next floor held the bedrooms, apart from Paul's, which was yet higher up. At some date (probably after his first trip to Paris) Paul had another room on the same floor as his bedroom fitted out as a studio. A big window, put in for north light, cut into the cornice and spoiled the roof-line on that side.' (Jack Lindsay, Cézanne, his Life and Art, London, 1969, p. 53).
After his mother's death in 1897, the estate had to be disposed of in order to divide the proceeds between Cézanne and his two sisters. It was sold at the end of 1899 to M. Granel for 75,000 francs. 'Nothing is known of the reasons that induced Cézanne to agree to this sale, which remains so puzzling since it was perfectly within his means to buy up the shares of the two others'. John Rewald writes in Cézanne, The Late Work, London, 1978. 'Perhaps he felt he had fully explored all the possibilities of the beautiful estate...Still, leaving the Jas forever must have been a traumatic experience for Cézanne since the place had meant home to him. There was the vast salon which, in his exuberant youth, he had decorated with large wall paintings (all left behind) and, more important, there was the garden with its alley of magnificent old chestnut trees reflected in the limpid pool. There were the greenhouses and the low wall beyond which, on clear days, Sainte-Victoire was visible; there were vineyards with their neat rows stretching to distant hills...Never one to adapt easily to new environments, Cézanne had found in the familiarity of the many aspects of the Jas both reassurance and isolation, the perfect ingredients for his work. Their loss was great. (It is said that before leaving, he made a bonfire of many of his belongings, among them quite a few of his works)' (pp. 84 and 85).
During the 1870s the Jas de Bouffan was of continuing inspiration for Cézanne as Venturi wrote "Même son Jas de Bouffan; c'est avec des yeux rajeunis que Cézanne le contempla quand il passa la grande partie des années à Aix. Nous avons di ailleurs que Monet, Pissarro, Sisley ont trouvé l'origine du gout impressioniste dans la valeur picturale du reflet des eaux. Dans ces tableaux...Cézanne s'est livré à la joie des reflets qui vont du bassin de la villa jusqu'au feuillage des arbres" (L. Venturi, op.cit., p. 34).
Significantly, it was this painting which converted a previously sceptical Roger Fry into an ardent admirer of Cézanne when it was one of two pictures exhibited in London in 1906 at the Exhibition of the International Society (the other was an early still life, Venturi 70). Fry wrote in the Athenaeum on 13 Jan. 1906, "We confess to having been hitherto sceptical about Cézanne's genius, but these two pictures reveal a power which is entirely distinct and personal, and though the artist's appeal is limited, and touches none of the finer issues of the imaginative life, it is nonetheless complete." Fry had further warmed to Cézanne's genius and the quality of this picture by 1927 when he wrote, "the bleak nakedness of a wintry landscape is forcibly expressed. Here the rectilinear structure and the preponderance of right angles is almost disconcerting at first, but we feel that Cézanne has accepted this bleakness of the scene with a sort of austere voluptuousness. The exaltation of the artist's mood, his passionate emotion, translate themselves everywhere in the rich elaboration of the pigment. These bare surfaces of grey wash give evidence of obstinate and patient research into all their variations of surface and colour. Again, it is by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations that he is able to construct for the imagination this immensity of space filled with light and vibrating with life" (R. Fry, Cézanne, a study of his development, London, 1927, p. 62).
Le Bassin du Jas de Bouffan shows that by 1878 Cézanne was outstandingly original in his artistic vision, having outgrown Impressionism and being prepared to break with the spatial values proscribed by Renaissance tenets. The tendency to geometrize compositional elements leads him to depict spatial depth in a new fashion. The power of his analytic mind is now the dominant force imposing its order over the landscape. Here Cézanne has seized upon the innovative device of the upright central tree, a device which looks forward to his later Mont St. Victoire series. From this central axis the landscape is laid out in a systematic rectilinear pattern where the cool colours of the wintry landscape exactly match the cool order of the artistic vision. Improvisation and frivolity is excluded in a composition of total serenity which Cézanne felt was so completely resolved that he appended that rare mark of approbation, his signature.
This picture of Le Bassin du Jas de Bouffan continued to be of further inspiration to Cézanne since he executed circa 1883-87 a watercolour closely based on the picture (Oskar Reinhart Collection, am Römerholz, Winterthur; J. Rewald, Paul Cézanne, the watercolours, London, 1983, no. 155, p. 123). The watercolour, worked with mainly pale, delicate colour washes, concentrates on the arabesque forms of the central tree, excluding the water reflections and certain elements of the distant landscape. Le Jas de Bouffan, the country retreat of the Cézanne family was bought by Cézanne's father Louis Auguste, a banker, in 1859. For the next forty years, the house was the stable point in Cézanne's often restless life, providing him not only with a much loved home, where he executed some of his earliest works, but also with a studio where he painted the numerous pictures of Le Jas de Bouffan and its estate. The grand, but neglected, Louis XIV mansion, former residence of the Governor of Provence, was situated about half a mile west of Aix-en-Provence, Cézanne's native town, and was surrounded by grounds covering some 37 acres of field, farms and profitable vineyards. 'Low walls surrounded the property. In the house the big hall on the ground level and several rooms above were at first left closed up; the family still used 14 rue Matheron for the town and went out to the Jas for weekends or for the summer. They could bathe in the fair-sized pool with its stone dolphins and limes; indeed the mansion had no other bath. At the rear stretched a fine avenue of chestnuts, much loved by Paul. Large, square and plain in structure, the house had once been stuccoed yellow; now it was faced with a tawny-grey cement; red tiles covered the low-pitched roof. A drive led up to the main entry on the north; a broad terrace flanked the south wall. On the ground floor a hall ran across the house, with stairway near the front door; to the west a big salon with rounded end ran the full length of the house; across from the hall lay dining room and kitchen. The next floor held the bedrooms, apart from Paul's, which was yet higher up. At some date (probably after his first trip to Paris) Paul had another room on the same floor as his bedroom fitted out as a studio. A big window, put in for north light, cut into the cornice and spoiled the roof-line on that side.' (Jack Lindsay, Cézanne, his Life and Art, London, 1969, p. 53).
After his mother's death in 1897, the estate had to be disposed of in order to divide the proceeds between Cézanne and his two sisters. It was sold at the end of 1899 to M. Granel for 75,000 francs. 'Nothing is known of the reasons that induced Cézanne to agree to this sale, which remains so puzzling since it was perfectly within his means to buy up the shares of the two others'. John Rewald writes in Cézanne, The Late Work, London, 1978. 'Perhaps he felt he had fully explored all the possibilities of the beautiful estate...Still, leaving the Jas forever must have been a traumatic experience for Cézanne since the place had meant home to him. There was the vast salon which, in his exuberant youth, he had decorated with large wall paintings (all left behind) and, more important, there was the garden with its alley of magnificent old chestnut trees reflected in the limpid pool. There were the greenhouses and the low wall beyond which, on clear days, Sainte-Victoire was visible; there were vineyards with their neat rows stretching to distant hills...Never one to adapt easily to new environments, Cézanne had found in the familiarity of the many aspects of the Jas both reassurance and isolation, the perfect ingredients for his work. Their loss was great. (It is said that before leaving, he made a bonfire of many of his belongings, among them quite a few of his works)' (pp. 84 and 85).
During the 1870s the Jas de Bouffan was of continuing inspiration for Cézanne as Venturi wrote "Même son Jas de Bouffan; c'est avec des yeux rajeunis que Cézanne le contempla quand il passa la grande partie des années à Aix. Nous avons di ailleurs que Monet, Pissarro, Sisley ont trouvé l'origine du gout impressioniste dans la valeur picturale du reflet des eaux. Dans ces tableaux...Cézanne s'est livré à la joie des reflets qui vont du bassin de la villa jusqu'au feuillage des arbres" (L. Venturi, op.cit., p. 34).