The House of the Hanged Man

Cezanne painted The House of the Hanged Man in 1873 at Auvers-sur-Oise, a village north of Paris where he was working with Camille Pissarro. He was 34 and had been painting for over a decade, but he was still struggling for recognition. A thatched cottage sits on a hillside, its walls rendered in strokes of grey and brown. A path climbs to the left, another descends to the right. A bench sits at the bend. The branches of a tree angle across the top of the canvas. The sky is pale, with thin clouds. The canvas is small, roughly 22 by 26 inches, landscape format. The colors are cool: greys, greens, and the pale blue of the sky. The painting was shown at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, at Nadar's studio in Paris. It was one of three canvases Cezanne exhibited. The critics were hostile. One of them, Louis Leroy, coined the term "Impressionist" as an insult, and Cezanne's contribution was singled out for particular mockery. The title, The House of the Hanged Man, is misleading: no one was hanged there. The name may come from a local story, or from the crooked angle of the house. Cezanne had been working with Pissarro at Auvers since 1872. Pissarro was 12 years older, and he persuaded Cezanne to give up his dark, heavy palette and paint in lighter colors, outdoors, directly from the subject. The House of the Hanged Man is one of the first paintings Cezanne made in this new style. It still looks different from Pissarro's work: the brushwork is thicker, the composition more angular, the colors more abrupt. But it is recognizably an Impressionist painting, and it marks the beginning of Cezanne's mature career. Oil on canvas, 55 by 66 centimeters. Cezanne painted with a cool palette of greys, greens, and blues, building the house in thick, grainy strokes. The path is a band of pale earth, with no detail. The tree branches are drawn in quick, calligraphic lines. The sky is a thin wash of blue and white. This painting works in a living room, study, or office. The cool palette and landscape subject suit a room with natural light and simple furniture. The 16x20 framed version in a white frame is the most versatile size. The painting is in the Musee d'Orsay, Paris, accession number RF 1970. This is a public domain artwork, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 24x36 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.