Farmyard at Auvers

By deciding to enclose between two walls the principal motif of his painting, a farmyard, CŽzanne brings us as if by trespass, right into the centre of his composition. The walls, like two almost abstract elements put sideways in the picture, far from having any anecdotal value, have a purely formal role -they wedge the motif and constitute a major component in the “poise” of the composition, which if we tried to remove one of them, would collapse. This medley of shapes all balacing each other announce the vertiginous landscapes of rocks and forest interiors painted by CŽzanne at BibŽmus near Aix-en-Provence at the end of the 1890s. The farm buildings are gathered around a central area where the ground is sloping. The unpleasant feeling of sliding off is fortunately counterbalanced by the presence of the trees near the farm. The elements of this landscape make up a silent theatre where CŽzanne tried to capture the inner life of things rather than the movement of living creatures. There is no human or animal presence in the place.