Horse-chestnut trees at Jas de Bouffan)

Horse-chestnut Trees at Jas de Bouffan (c.1885) is one of a series of works Paul Cézanne devoted to the grounds of the Cézanne family estate outside Aix-en-Provence that his father had purchased in 1859 and where Paul spent much of his working life. The avenue of chestnut trees at the estate was a recurring motif for Cézanne, one he explored in multiple oils and watercolors as he developed the structural, analytical approach to landscape that would define his mature work. These Jas de Bouffan paintings were central to his move away from Impressionist surface observation toward the architectonic analysis of form that influenced Cubism and all of twentieth-century painting.

The trees are organized as vertical structural elements within a horizontally composed landscape, their forms analyzed into planes of color and tone rather than rendered illusionistically. Cézanne's characteristic small, parallel brushstrokes build the volume of the trees and the spatial depth of the estate grounds. The palette is cool green and ochre.