Paul Cézanne

Ambroise Vollard, Paris
Private Collection, Europe

John Rewald, Cézanne: A Biography, New York, 1986, illustrated p. 36
John Rewald, The Paintings of Paul Cézanne. A Catalgoue Raisonné, New York, 1996, vol. I, no. 126, p. 111; vol. II, illustrated p. 42

This work is in good condition. The canvas is lined with a glue lining. The tacking edge is covered with paper tape. Despite the lining the surface retains a rich impasto. The surface looks slightly dirty especially in the lightest pigments. Two small areas of retouching are visible under ultraviolet light, the first is slightly discolored and visible to the naked eye, located ten centimetres to the left of the lower right corner, and the other small area of retouching covers the upper left corner. In comparison with the catalogue illustration the works appears lighter overall in person, and there is less black overall especially in the rocky area at lower right.
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Lawrence Gowing has stated of Cézanne's early works, "The reason for looking closely at what Cézanne did before 1872, when he joined Pissarro and became the painter we know, is that it constituted a separate and unparalleled creation. Its relevance to its surroundings and sequels was marginal. Oblivious of opinion, it held meaning in its own passionate right and in the uncouth conviction of the painter. Cézanne's work found shadow while other painters, his Paris friends, sought light [...] Its caprice was ungoverned and its reason eccentric. Its portrayal of his world can now be recognized as often brilliant, sometimes grotesque, yet as often crudely grand, nearly always unquiet and seemingly haunted by a spirit that is unexplained [...] Its stillness built a solidity into paint as no painting before had ever been built, as if paint could be as monumental as masonry. Before Cézanne's way changed in 1872 and his ferocity was sublimated under another star, these first works culminated in a group of masterpieces [...] which now speak directly to us" (L. Gowing, Cézanne, The Early Years 1859-1872 (exhibition catalogue), Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1988, p. 5)

Rochers dans la fôret, Fontainebleau embodies the vanguard nature of these early works with an unparalleled expressive force. The interplay of compositional elements creates a sense of rushing space that appears to spill out of the picture plane. The "ungoverned caprice" and monumentality described by Gowing resonate in this work – one of the artist's earliest outdoor landscapes. The geometric conception of space which will denote his mature style finds a voice here in the brilliant transition from middle-ground to foreground.  The forest of Fontainebleau was a favored locale for Cézanne and several of his contemporaries. The dramatic tensions between boulders and verdant fauna provided the artist with complex landscapes that fostered his future development. Gustave Flaubert wrote of Fontainebleau in Sentimental Education: "The rocks filled the entire landscape [...] cubic like houses, flat like slabs of cut stone, supporting each other, overhanging in confusion, like the unrecognizable and monstrous ruins of some vanished city. But the fury of their chaos makes one think rather of volcanos, deluges and great forgotten cataclysms" (quoted in John Rewald, The Paintings of Paul Cézanne. A Catalogue Raisonné, New York, 1996, vol. I, p. 469).