Chestnut Trees at Jas de Bouffan

Paul Cézanne

c. 1885–86

Oil on canvas

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A grove of bare chestnut trees stands in a grassy field with buildings and a distant mountain under a pale sky. The trees are dark and their branches create a dense, intricate pattern against the background. This painting represents an avenue on the grounds of Paul Cézanne's family estate in southern France in Aix-en-Provence. In this view, he carefully recorded the color and light of the wintry scene, with its tracery of bare branches against the sky. To create an ordered pictorial design, he selected this particular view, emphasizing its rigorous horizontal and vertical structures. In depicting the chestnut trees, he employed multiple viewpoints; this collapses depth, meshing the two parallel rows of trees into a web that seems to exist in one plane. This characteristic innovation produced a rhythmic synthesis of form in both two and