The Bent Tree

The Bent Tree (1889) at the Hiroshima Museum of Art belongs to the series of tree studies Cézanne made as concentrated investigations of natural form. A tree bent by the prevailing Mistral wind — a characteristic feature of the Provençal landscape — offered a curvilinear deviation from the vertical that tested his method in a specific way. The diagonal or curved trunk disrupted the rectilinear organization of most landscape compositions and required him to find a new compositional logic to contain the tree's dynamic form. By 1889 his interest in individual trees as formal subjects was intensifying; the forest interiors and tree-study paintings of this period represent a systematic investigation of how organic growth could be rendered through his constructive method. The Hiroshima Museum of Art, which holds several significant nineteenth-century European paintings as part of its broad collection, acquired this canvas as one of the landmarks of Post-Impressionist landscape. The bent tree's formal interest to Cézanne runs parallel to his engagement with the geological irregularities of rock formation: nature's deviations from simple geometry were among his most productive challenges.

Cézanne renders the bent tree's curving trunk through brushstrokes that follow the form's contour while building the color modulations that convey its three-dimensional mass. The tree's deviation from vertical creates a dynamic diagonal within the composition, countered by the horizontal sweep of the landscape behind it. His characteristic 'passage' — the modulation from one color to another across a surface — is particularly evident in how he renders the tree's varied bark.