Description
Bend in Forest Road – the late Cézanne at the edge of abstraction
Bend in Forest Road is a work of Cézanne’s last years, when his manner loosened to the point where individual branches and trunks are barely separable from the planes of colour they are built from. An ochre path descends through a blue-green mesh of foliage. Our hand-painted reproduction on canvas brings this dense, almost musical subject into your home, painted in oil on canvas.
The last years, when a painting becomes a mesh
In the years after 1900 Cézanne no longer built a scene around one clear centre. The planes of colour become steadily more equal and the transitions between tree, shadow and sky steadily more open – in places he simply left the canvas uncovered. It is these late works that have him regarded as the bridge between Impressionism and the painting of the 20th century; the Cubists cited him explicitly, while he himself never spoke of abstraction.
A subject that is only a pretext
A bend in a road is a frequent subject with Cézanne because it gave him exactly what he needed: a curve that leads the eye into depth without having to be drawn with perspective. The path turns and disappears, and the space arises from the difference between warm and cool tones rather than from drawing.
A woodland mesh of colour
In the photographs above you can see our hand-painted reproduction of this painting. In this late subject every stroke is visible and counts – which is why a painter makes it and not a printer. Choose among ten sizes, and we will paint yours to measure on request. The dense blue-green scale settles a working space. We show you the frame with a realistic 3D preview. Among our reproductions on canvas you will find Cézanne’s other woodland subjects: Road at Chantilly, Woods with Millstone and Rocks and Branches at Bibémus.
- Subject: Bend in Forest Road, Paul Cézanne, 1902–1906
- Technique: hand-painted painting, oil on canvas, reproduction
- Sizes: 10 formats, stretched on a wooden stretcher frame on request, or made to your measurements
- Fact: a late work in which the painter left the canvas uncovered in places
