There are two things in painting, vision and mind, and they should work in unison. As a painter, one must try to develop them harmoniously: vision, by looking at nature; mind, by ruling one’s senses logically, thus providing the means of expression. This is now my aim.
Route tournante en sous-bois is an exquisitely rendered, luminous watercolor that was executed circa 1885-1890, a period of intense exploration for Cézanne. It was during this period that he began to formulate his own unique theories of representation, largely influenced by his mentor Pissarro’s painting.
Watercolor was a medium that remained central to Cézanne throughout his career, offering him a variety of painterly effects that differed from oil in his continuous search to solve the problem of the depiction of reality. It also allowed him to work quickly and effectively capturing a scene.
The present work establishes a delicate balance between drawing and soft touches of color, which he used to modulate forms and suggest shifting structure of landscape and still life. Through his works, he scrutinized nature, seeking not to depict an exact likeness of the landscape before him, but to capture its essence, structure and sensations it produced.
In the present work, Cézanne beautifully depicts nature in his own way. The winding path at the forefront, recognizable by the use of yellow and orange on a penciled-in curve, leads the viewer towards the forest in the backdrop, distinguished by the painted tree trunks, penciled-in foliage and branches. Cézanne created volume through patches of color, each harmoniously working with its neighbor on the surface of the composition. This intricate balance is evident in Route tournante en sous-bois, a translucent mosaic of perceptively applied color.
