Study of Trees

Study of Trees at the Harvard Art Museums, dated around 1904, is a late Cézanne landscape study in which the systematic investigation of trees as forms absorbs all other considerations. The title's designation as 'study' is characteristically modest — Cézanne often described his works in these terms, suggesting work-in-progress rather than completed statement. By 1904 his approach to trees had become one of the most analytically rigorous in Western painting: each trunk, each branching, each cluster of foliage subjected to the same systematic observation through color planes.

The late date shows in the most advanced form of Cézanne's parallel-stroke technique — the trees are constructed from directional marks of varied hue that build up volume without outlining it. Areas of bare canvas remain between strokes in some passages, a characteristic feature of his late landscape studies that anticipates the open, constructive handling of early Cubism.