{"id":179734,"date":"2026-08-08T08:51:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T06:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/?post_type=product&p=179734"},"modified":"2026-08-08T09:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T07:03:16","slug":"the-poplars","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/en\/paul-cezanne\/the-poplars\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul C\u00e9zanne \u2013 Poplars"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Poplars \u2013 the canvas C\u00e9zanne lets breathe<\/h2>\n

Poplars is one of those C\u00e9zanne landscapes in which the paint deliberately does not cover everything. Slender trunks rise in a row into dense, restless foliage, a meadow with a narrow path stretches below, and a low stone wall shows white among the trees on the right. The canvas measures about 65 \u00d7 80 cm, was painted in 1879-1880, and is held by the Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Orsay<\/strong> in Paris (inv. RF 2324). With us it is made as a hand-painted painting on canvas<\/strong>, worked in oil.<\/p>\n

The white ground showing through the strokes<\/h3>\n

Step close and you notice something unusual: the white ground of the canvas shows through almost everywhere between the strokes. In these years C\u00e9zanne worked with slanting, parallel touches and did not blend them into a smooth surface \u2013 between them he left the bare priming to breathe. It is exactly those pale gaps that give the scene light and restlessness, so the green never settles into a heavy mass but shimmers. A flat reproduction cannot carry this across, because it merges the strokes into an even surface and the white ground disappears.<\/p>\n

How to paint a wall of green<\/h3>\n

A landscape ruled by leaves is a thankless task: everything is green and everything looks equally far away. C\u00e9zanne solved it by setting the uprightness of the poplars against the confused mass of the other trees. The straight verticals act as a scaffold along which the eye finds order, and everything else is then free to dissolve into movement. This is why it is not an idyllic backdrop in the manner of the Barbizon school, but a constructed scene.<\/p>\n

Beside the Viosne near Pontoise<\/h3>\n

The motif was painted beside the river Viosne near Pontoise; the museum connects it with the grounds of the ch\u00e2teau de Marcouville, though the sources do not fully agree on the exact spot. Camille Pissarro, the older companion who opened up painting in the open air for C\u00e9zanne, had worked in the same area a few years earlier. The canvas passed through several private hands and in 1921 entered the French national collections as the bequest of Joseph Reinach.<\/p>\n

At home Poplars works best where there is enough distance for the green to breathe \u2013 above a long sofa, along a staircase, or in a study. Green and ochre are quiet colours, so the scene does not tire the eye even in a room you spend hours in. It comes in fifteen sizes, from 50 \u00d7 40 cm to 180 \u00d7 145 cm; if none of them is right, we stretch the canvas to a custom size<\/strong>. How the scene looks framed you can check in our 3D preview application<\/strong>. If among our art paintings on canvas<\/strong> further C\u00e9zanne landscapes interest you, look at Village Road, Auvers<\/a>, The House of P\u00e8re Lacroix in Auvers<\/a> and The Great Pine<\/a>.<\/p>\n