Arbres et maisons au lieu dit La Durane (Trees and Houses)

This 1885 canvas of trees and houses at La Durane, held at the Orangerie, belongs to the period when Cézanne was consolidating the pictorial methods that would define his mature style. La Durane was a hamlet near Aix-en-Provence, and the motif — farmhouses partially concealed by trees — combines his two central landscape concerns: built form and natural form in dialogue. The interpenetration of architecture and vegetation, geometric solids softened by organic growth, recurs throughout his Provençal landscapes. The Orangerie group of Cézanne still lifes and landscapes represents some of his most important late work preserved in a single institution.

The composition weaves house walls and tree canopies together through interlocking passages of warm and cool color. Cézanne's diagonal parallel strokes apply to both built and natural forms, unifying the surface. The warm ochres of stone walls contrast with the varied greens of the tree canopy above and beside them.