Fake or Fortune, the very popular arts documentary produced by the BBC, and fronted by Phillip Mould and Fiona Bruce, is always a must watch. The programme has successfully revealed the murky world of art in a highly receptive way, flitting as it does between the search for provenance and the detail of forensic study. Its aim is to raise the status of works of art by having them authorised as genuine by experts. I sometimes get frustrated by the essential cliffhanger situations and find their ‘compelling’ evidence a little stretched at times, but nevertheless less a great watch. Some gain authority and some fail. 

Cézanne was the subject of the latest episode we saw focussing on a water-colour featuring trees, presumably from the Château Noir, similar to The Postachio Tree,  which we saw in The Tate Modern earlier this year. The quest actually failed, sadly for the owner, and the work was not deemed to be by Cézanne. The programme did remind me, however. just how much I enjoy the works of the great post impressionist artist, and how much the Modern art world is in his debt. Cézanne had a number of themes, all well known, including his still life’s, portraits, his studies of bathers, his studies of trees and, of course, his paintings of the Mont Saint Victoire near Aix en Provence, which we have visited. But, returning to Fake or Fortune, it is the trees that have always enthralled me; maybe because we used to live in a wood or maybe because I also like painting trees.

My painting of the month for October then is Sous Bois or Forest Floor, which is the property of the Los Angeles County Art Museum, but we also saw in The Tate Modern exhibition earlier this year. I had seen images of this painting before but standing in front of it I witnessed its real power and aura. It is different from many of his tree studies with its chaotic array of diagonal branches, trunks and leaves. The floor is also chaotic, reminiscent of our former wood, being entangled, impenetrable and full of subtle colour. 

Although the leaves are simply dashes of colour you can sense each individual and its contribution to the whole. Compare this with the earlier landscape painters, like Gainsborough, who articulated each individual leaf. It is this aspect that identifies Modern Art as a challenge to photography, that the painter can portray the expressive nature of a scene rather than the realism – and Cézanne was the master of the craft. I also loved how the artist, with just a few dabs of colour reveals the distant mountains through the forest – exquisite.

Cézanne is of course a great favourite of mine, yet I cannot believe it is 2018 since my most recent post, titled Aix en Provence. Unfortunately the exhibition at the Tate Modern finished in March but do look out for future shows. Cézanne will always deliver!