Gardener (Le Jardinier)

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Peasants were a popular subject for French artists in the late 19th century. Many created romanticized depictions in which rosy-cheeked figures labor in fields saturated with golden light. Cézanne avoided such sentimentality in this painting. The subject is a gardener who worked on his father's estate outside Aix-en-Provence, where Cézanne lived and worked for many years. Cézanne rhymes nature with the gardener's body: the bush behind him forms a perfect oval frame, and the tree branches at right bend to follow his contours.

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