Trees and Village

Derain painted the Provençal village of Eygalières more than once in 1932, and this is the version with weather in it. A low ceiling of grey cloud, streaked with white, presses down over the hill, and only a few small clouds near the horizon still catch the light. The village sits in a patch of pale sun, a square tower at its top. In front of it rise a tall dark evergreen and heavy, rounded masses of foliage, and at one edge a bare, twisted trunk shows its pale bark. The foreground is left almost empty, broad strokes of sand and ochre. Paul Guillaume, Derain's dealer, owned it from the year it was painted. It then stayed with his widow, who later married the architect Jean Walter, and the French state bought it from her in 1963.