Pistachio Tree at Château Noir
c. 1900
Medium
Watercolor with graphite on cream wove paper, laid down on tan wove paper
Dimensions
54.2 × 43.3 cm (21 3/8 × 17 1/16 in.)
Classification
watercolor
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
25838
Art Historical Context
In the late stages of his career, Paul Cézanne, the pioneering Post-Impressionist painter captured the rugged beauty of Provence in *Pistachio Tree at Noir* (c. 1900). Nestled near Aix-en-Provence, the Château Noir was one of Cézanne's subjects, a rocky outcrop he painted obsessively to explore the geometry and volume hidden within nature. This watercolor reflects his lifelong quest to reconcile Impressionist light with a more structural approach, influencing modern masters like Picasso and Matisse. Rendered in watercolor with graphite on cream wove paper—laid down on tan wove for preservatio...
About the Artist
Paul Cezanne · 1839–1906
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), born in Aix-en-Provence to a prosperous banker father, Louis-Auguste, and mother Anne-Elisabeth-Honorine Aubert, grew up in a bourgeois family that later acquired the Jas de Bouffan estate, where he painted his earliest murals. As a youth, he formed the inseparable trio "Les Trois Inséparables" with schoolmates Émile Zola and Baptistin Baille. Despite his father's wishes ...