Henri-Joseph Harpignies, The Painter's Garden at Saint-Privé

Henri-Joseph Harpignies’ garden was clearly a great joy to him: it became one of his favourite subjects and he painted it many times, making sketches and watercolours as well as oil paintings. In this picture, painted a few years after he retired to the country, he has depicted the garden in great detail, from the plants and trees to the texture of old walls and flower pots. He has outlined some of the shapes and forms with a slender black line drawn with a fine brush. They are delicate but significant, giving a quirky, ‘cut-out’ style rather like a collage.

The garden rises up ahead of us, starting from a formal parterre enclosed with a wall. Circular beds with roses of many different varieties and shades of red and pink and creamy white suggest that Harpignies was interested in the flowers he grew and didn’t see them purely as an attractive background. Shelves of potted plants and seedlings add to a feeling that he may have had a hands-on interest in horticulture. A figure in white with a pink hat walks up a slope on the left that leads up to a lawn – perhaps the artist himself carrying an easel or even a gardening tool. The hat and the red and pink roses below contrast with the strong greens surrounding them, subtly enlivening the lower part of the picture so that it holds its own under the brilliance of the bright blue sky.

An old, grey stone wall supporting climbing plants surrounds the lawn. From here, stone steps lead up to an avenue of trees, one of which partially hides an intriguing white tower. Harpignies loved trees, knew them well and always painted them in accurate detail; the eminent French writer Anatole France described him as ‘the Michelangelo of trees’. Just as he painted various species of roses, he painted various species of trees, from spindly conifers to tall oaks. A row of neatly rounded tree tops – hornbeam, perhaps, or chestnut – are lined up like a regiment of leafy troops.

Harpignies had retired to his property (La Trémellerie at Saint Privé on the banks of the river Loing, south-east of Paris) in about 1879. He kept a studio in Paris, but set up a second one in his garden, full of light and air. Students came to work with him there, and for many years he took them out on painting and sketching trips into the surrounding countryside. He divided his time between Le Trémellerie and the Côte d'Azure, continuing to paint right up until his death in 1916.