Paul Cézanne

According to John Rewald and Adrien Chappuis, Cézanne’s drawing of the kerosene lamp on the verso of this work pre-dates the watercolor La Clarière on the other side. The stylistic differences of each drawing reflect Cézanne’s proficiency in a wide range of media, and the development of his artistic concerns toward the last decade of his career. Around this time, Cézanne’s choice of motifs branched into two different directions: in one, the artist portrayed expansive scenes, such as in his depictions of Mont Sainte-Victoire. In the other, he focused on densely wooded scenes of wild, untamed growth, through which a small portion of the sky is visible. In this latter group of works, Cézanne revolutionised the concept of spatial structure by embracing the two-dimensional quality of his surfaces and creating a sense of depth by building a network of flat, geometrical colour planes. La Clarière is an excellent example of these concerns manifested in the watercolour medium. This composition is dominated by a grove of slender, elegant trees emphasized by vertical lines, whose tops disappear from the picture frame. The overlapping patches of colour of varying intensity create a sense of expanding and receding spaces, while the network of rhythmic, geometrically rendered hues imbues this work with a wonderful impression of light and atmosphere.

Lampe à petrole, on the other hand, belongs to a family of interior still-lifes that Cézanne executed in the late 1880s. Unlike La Clarière, this object is depicted in its full length, and the artist has employed classic perspectival methods to achieve depth and weight. Cézanne used heavier lines to emphasize the base of the lamp and the elements at the bottom of the composition, while the detail in the upper portion is rendered with delicate curves. As a result, this mass-produced household object signifies both the industrial taste of the second half of the nineteenth century, and the great care with which Cézanne treated his subjects.