Maisons et peupliers wonderfully encapsulates Herbin’s distinctly individual approach to painting. A scene rendered without perspective or relief, ‘the flat areas of colour are strongly contrasted, the acid greens play with the red and lively pink’ (Geneviève Claisse, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint d'Auguste Herbin, Paris, 1993, no. 153, p. 43). Herbin returned to France from Bruges in 1908 and briefly stayed in Cambrai. He depicts the morning light falling subtly upon a cluster of houses, surrounded by trees. The French countryside provided the ideal backdrop for Herbin to further his experimentations with form and colour. Maisons et peupliers provides such a compelling insight into how Herbin amalgamated the Fauve style of deft brushwork and emotive use of colour with the visual lexicon of Cubism.