About this artwork
Cezanne painted Auvers, Panoramic View between 1873 and 1875, during the years when he was living in Auvers-sur-Oise, a village on the Oise River northwest of Paris. He had moved there in 1872, at the suggestion of Camille Pissarro, who had been living in the village since 1866. The two painters worked together for the next two years, painting the same landscapes and learning from each other's methods. This period was the turning point of Cezanne's career: the dark, heavy paintings of the 1860s gave way to the lighter, more structured work that would define his mature style.
The painting shows a panoramic view of the Oise valley from the hills above Auvers. The village is visible in the middle distance, with its church spire and red roofs. The river winds through the valley, and the fields are painted in patches of green, yellow, and brown. The sky fills the upper third of the canvas, painted in soft blues and whites. The composition is wide and open, with the viewer looking out over the landscape from an elevated position.
Cezanne's years in Auvers were the closest he came to being an Impressionist. He painted alongside Pissarro, adopted his lighter palette and smaller brushstroke, and exhibited with the Impressionist group in 1874 (the first Impressionist exhibition) and 1877 (the third). But even in this period, Cezanne's work was different from Pissarro's. Where Pissarro painted the effects of light and atmosphere, Cezanne painted the structure of the landscape. His brushstrokes are more directional, his colors more saturated, and his compositions more tightly organized. Auvers, Panoramic View shows this difference clearly: the landscape is built in solid patches of color, with each form given a weight and presence that Pissarro's more atmospheric work does not have.
The village of Auvers was an artists' colony in the 1870s, home to Pissarro, Cezanne, and later Van Gogh, who spent the last months of his life there in 1890. Dr. Paul Gachet, who lived in Auvers and was a friend to the painters, hosted Cezanne and Pissarro at his house and collected their work. Cezanne painted several views of the village and the valley during his stay, and this panoramic view is one of the most ambitious.
Oil on canvas, 65 by 81 centimeters. Cezanne painted with short, directional strokes, building the fields and the village in patches of warm and cool color. The sky is painted in thin, translucent layers of blue and white, applied in broad, horizontal strokes. The trees that frame the view are painted in thick, vertical strokes of dark green. The surface has the fresh, worked quality of a painting made outdoors, with the colors mixed on the canvas rather than on the palette.
The horizontal format and warm palette make this print work well in a living room, dining room, or office. The greens, blues, and warm earth tones pair with white walls, natural wood, and rooms with a rural or traditional mood. The 18x24 size is the best choice, as the panoramic composition needs width to read. The painting has a calm, expansive quality that suits rooms with a relaxed or contemplative mood.
The painting entered the Art Institute of Chicago's collection in 1933, as part of the Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection.
This is a public domain artwork, scanned from the original at the Art Institute of Chicago. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 18x24 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.
