Cézanne’s transformation of animate nature into inanimate geometry becomes more apparent in his progress from “Chemin des Lauves” and “Trees and Cistern” to “Path, Trees, and Walls” (c. 1900-1904) through his increasing abstraction and intentional displacement and rearrangement of these geometric forms in the forest scenes. According to Laura Giles, “Path, Trees, and Walls” was the first truly “quasi abstract” watercolor of his forest work and therefore it is also known as his first major link to Cubism (Armstrong and Giles 79.80). Like “Chemin des Lauves” and “Trees and Cistern,” this painting evolves from Cézanne’s use of blocks of color from his strokes as well as intentionally placed horizontal lines. The key difference between “Path, Trees, and Walls,” and the two prior paintings, however, is the abstraction produced by the lack of orientation and the lack of distinction between where objects end or where they begin. To this end, there are two distinct rectangular tree trunks running up either side of the tree and from there is it unknown where the trees’ branches end and the mountain begins. Simply, we see the diagonal blocks of color placed in a triangular arrangement vertically across the sides of the paintings. The shapes are used to convey what Cézanne saw and felt, not necessarily the actual picture. In this way, geometric objects have replaced the natural forms in Cézanne’s attempt to create an architectonic scope. As Laura Giles reiterates in Cézanne in Focus, Cézanne creates a “programmatic displacement of a conventional perspective order of space.” In other words, he purposely distorts a unified perspective to allow a viewer into his scope of the scene: how nature interacts and the sensations provoked by the interacting landscapes (Armstrong and Giles, 80). In “Path, Trees, and Walls,” Cézanne illuminates his transition towards unintentional abstraction through his increasing use of geometricization and lack of distinct outlines of natural objects thus creating an even more inanimate scene of nature, and therefore highlighting the defined steps from Cézanne’s work to Cubism.
Yet while “Path, Trees, and Walls” clearly shows a change in Cézanne’s work, “Undergrowth” (c. 1900-1906) is the true pivotal watercolor that defines Cézanne’s position in between traditional painting and Cubism through his objectification of nature with shapes and symmetry. Upon first glance, the scene seems like a scrambled confusion of greens and browns. Basic perspective is mangled and the normal horizontal field to which we are accustomed is fragmented across the watercolor in an oval mass (Armstrong and Giles, 94). The strokes are, again, mostly in block shapes of varying shades of green obviously portraying some sort of brush, other than that the subject matter is unknown. The strokes are then layered over and over again creating the illusion of the tangled clutter: squares upon squares changed by position. Complimenting these squares in the architectonic schematization of the watercolor are seemingly symmetrical curved lines sweeping across the watercolor breaking the blocks into sections. While Cézanne’s was never known as abstract, per say, this was the closest he came. We have no idea at what we are looking, whether it is the underbrush or the tops of the trees, but that is not what is important. Instead, this watercolor epitomizes how Cézanne is connected to the Cubists through the geometricization of form and reliance on the importance of meaning versus an imitative likeness. What the painting looked like did not matter, Cézanne’s goal was to derive for the viewer the sensations evoked from the pure shapes (Armstrong and Giles, 93). It was this “communication with nature,” as Carol Donnell says in her article “The Continuing Cubist Controversy, that was Cézanne’s driving force in creating these watercolors (Donnell, 66). Ironically, it was the goal to portray that “communication with nature” that led Cézanne to rely on the most basic and lifeless forms of geometric shapes to accomplish this feat as so clearly exemplified in “Undergrowth.”