Group of Trees
Chaim Soutine
CHAIM SOUTINE, c.1922. OIL ON CANVAS.
As German bombs fell on Paris, artists scattered to safety. Soutine, Amadeo Modigliani, and their dealer Leopold Zborowski fled to the south of France where they stayed for three years in the small town of Céret, a sharp contrast to the metropolitan life they had been used to in the capital. But the town proved invigorating for the group, and Soutine executed a series of turbulent landscapes that are at once beautiful and fearful, reflecting his exiled state and the prevalent sadness of the ensuing war. Violence seeps into every brushstroke and landscapes of the pastoral, rolling hills and thick woodlands come alive with a feeling of war. Here, a group of trees obscuring a town in the distance curl up like flames, moving with erratic freedom that engulfs the surrounding landscape. Background and foreground collapse into one as the view seems to morph into torment. In retreat, Soutine found peace in the land but none in his mind and his art reflected this duality, creating some of the most disquieting works of his career and showing how the pains of war seep into everything.