Turn in the Road
Paul Cézanne
(French, 1839–1906)
about 1881
Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas
Dimensions60.6 x 73.3 cm (23 7/8 x 28 7/8 in.)
Credit LineBequest of John T. Spaulding
Accession number48.525
On View
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This bold landscape shows Cézanne’s radical interest in spatial relationships and three dimensional form. A fence follows from the left behind the turning road; to the right of where the road disappears, brown paint could suggest an upright fence obscuring the white building, or flat earth leading to it. Patches of green—leaves or grass, near or distant—exacerbate this tension between flatness and depth. “I am progressing very slowly,” Cézanne noted, “for nature reveals itself to me in very complex forms.” Widely misunderstood by contemporary critics, Cézanne’s work was admired and collected by his colleagues. This landscape, for example, once belonged to Claude Monet.
ProvenanceBefore 1894, possibly Julien-François Tanguy (b. 1825 - d. 1894), Paris. 1894, Théodore Duret (b. 1838 - d. 1927), Paris; March 19, 1894, Duret sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, lot 3, to Paul-César Helleu (b. 1859 - d. 1927), Paris; sold by Helleu to Claude Monet (b. 1840 - d. 1926), Giverny; 1926, by descent from Monet to his son, Michel Monet (b. 1878 - d. 1966), Giverny; 1926/27, sold by Michel Monet to Paul Rosenberg and Co., Paris, for Wildenstein and Co., Paris; 1927, sold by Wildenstein to John Taylor Spaulding (b. 1870 - d. 1948), Boston; 1948, bequest of John Taylor Spaulding to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 3, 1948)
Peter Paul Rubens
