栗树与雅斯德布芳农庄

This row of chestnut trees led into the garden of the Jas de Bouffan, a country house outside Aix-en-Provence that Cézanne's father, a prosperous banker, had bought in 1859. For nearly thirty years the painter came back to the place, painting its trees, its pool and its long garden wall over and over. He worked on this view around 1886, and that year the estate stopped being simply his father's. Louis-Auguste Cézanne died in the autumn of 1886, leaving his son the house and enough money to paint without ever worrying about selling again. The patient, blocky brushstrokes that build up the trees and the low farm buildings show how far his landscapes had travelled from the quick flicker of his Impressionist years.