The Pigeon Tower at Bellevue
Paul Cezanne painted this composition in three horizontal planes: the azure blue of the sky; the luminous white of the tower and the farmyard buildings; and the burnt-orange shade of the foreground earth, whose color is indicative of the iron-rich soil of Provence. The shimmering greens of Cezanne’s favorite cypress and olive trees are interspersed across the middle ground. The composition is pared down to its essentials, devoid of extraneous detail; it exemplifies his ambition “to make something solid and enduring, like the art in museums.”
Colors in this work
Details
- Date
- 1890
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Dimensions
- framed: height 0.955 m, width 1.13 m, depth 0.07 m; unframed: height 0.656 m, width 0.815 m
- Origin
- France, 19th century
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
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- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- The James W. Corrigan Memorial
Art Genome Taxonomy
8 tags
Subject Matter
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Landscapes Both · 99%
The image presents a rural landscape of cultivated ground, vegetation, and farm buildings; the title and museum description identify the scene as The Pigeon Tower at Bellevue.
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Architecture's Effects Both · 96%
The composition visibly includes a prominent pale tower and several farm buildings, while the catalog describes the tower and farmyard structures as central elements.
Visual Qualities
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Bright and Vivid Colors Both · 94%
The image uses strong blue, green, cream, and orange color relationships, corresponding to the catalog’s description of azure sky, shimmering greens, luminous white buildings, and burnt-orange earth.
Medium and Techniques
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Painting Metadata · 99%
The Cleveland Museum of Art classifies the work as a painting and records the medium as oil on fabric.
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Oil Painting Metadata · 99%
The catalog specifies oil on fabric as the medium.
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Large Brushstrokes/Loose Brushwork Visual · 93%
The surface shows clearly visible, broken and relatively broad brushstrokes across the sky, vegetation, buildings, and foreground earth.
Time Periods
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19th Century Art Metadata · 99%
The work is dated 1890 and its place of origin is recorded as France, 19th century.
Geographic Regions
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French Art Metadata · 99%
The artist is identified as Paul Cezanne, French, and the catalog records the place of origin as France.
Source & rights
Paul Cezanne (French, 1839–1906). The Pigeon Tower at Bellevue. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 14,104 × 11,338 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available