Joseph Posenaer, Orchard, 1917

by Atelier Liesjes

A row of old, gnarled trees stands on a sloping patch of reddish-brown earth. The trunks are cut low and sprout anew in erratic curves, so that they reach towards one another like twisted arms; the surface of the bark is rendered with streaks of lime green, yellow-brown and purplish grey. Between the trunks, the ground is strewn with pale stones and pebbles. Behind the trees, a denser canopy shimmers in blue-green and grey-green, with the occasional gap through which the sky shines through. In the bottom left-hand corner is the signature, dated September 1917. The earth slopes upwards to the right, where the trees stand closer together. Posenaer worked with watercolour and white overpaint on paper, using a technique that remains thin and transparent whilst still rendering defined forms. The earth is painted with broad, flowing strokes, the trunks with fine, scratchy lines; amongst the shades is a strikingly cool blue-green that contrasts with the warm reddish-brown of the ground. The scene is simple in composition: no people, no buildings, just trees and earth. Yet it has something of a portrait about it, so idiosyncratically are the trunks contoured and so emphatically does their movement fill the entire page. Because the trees are drawn low to the ground, it seems as though they have started afresh each time; this gives the sheet a peculiar, almost decorative rhythm. Joseph Posenaer (Antwerp 1876 – Borgerhout 1935) was a Belgian painter and draughtsman who mainly produced landscapes and figure studies. The sheet forms part of an album dedicated to J.H. van Eeghen by Belgian visual artists in 1918; it is held at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The signature is elegant and spans almost the entire width of the lower left-hand corner. An intimate, tranquil work suited to a classical interior.