The Bare Trees at Jas de Bouffan

The Bare Trees at Jas de Bouffan (c.1880) at the National Museum of Western Art (NMWA) in Tokyo documents the chestnut trees at Cézanne's family estate in their winter leafless state — a subject he painted repeatedly across different seasons to understand the trees' underlying structural character. The NMWA, housing the Matsukata Collection assembled by industrialist Kojiro Matsukata in the 1920s, holds this among European paintings from the Renaissance through Post-Impressionism that were collected with remarkable discernment. Japan's major institutional collections include some of the most significant Post-Impressionist works outside Europe — the Artizon, Ohara, and NMWA collections collectively represent a remarkable concentration. The winter tree subject connects to his sustained observation of the Jas de Bouffan environment across all seasons: winter, spring, summer, and autumn versions of the same trees and buildings constituting a kind of serial investigation of temporal and formal change within a fixed location.

The bare tree trunks and their branching systems are painted as dark linear structures against pale winter sky. Cézanne's parallel strokes build both the tree forms and the surrounding ground. The restrained palette of grays, ochres, and blacks focuses attention on the geometric branching patterns.