Terracotta Pots and Flowers (Pots en terre cuite et fleurs)

Terracotta Pots and Flowers (c.1891) at the Barnes Foundation is one of a series of garden still lifes Cézanne produced at the Jas de Bouffan, taking his systematic analytical approach outdoors to study objects in natural light. The terracotta garden pot was a vernacular Provençal object that Cézanne encountered constantly at the estate — its warm red-orange color and rounded form making it an excellent subject for his color modulation method. These garden still lifes occupy a boundary between the controlled studio arrangements of his canonical still lifes and the outdoor landscape painting that was his other principal pursuit. By treating the garden pot with the same structural seriousness as his Delft-blue ginger jars and crystal decanters, Cézanne asserted the democratic availability of formal analysis to any subject of sufficient structural interest. The Barnes Foundation holds this alongside major works in the same garden still-life category, documenting Cézanne's sustained engagement with the Jas de Bouffan environment.

Terracotta warm reds-oranges alternate with the cooler blues and greens of foliage and shadows. The rounded pot forms are described through adjacent color patches of varying temperature. Flowers are treated summarily—dabs of color rather than botanical description—in contrast to the more carefully analyzed pot forms.