George Elbert Burr, born Monroe Falls, - Roche Vaud - 1899 - T-Shirt

This is a dated 1899 pencil study of two pollarded trees, their bare, forking branches rising from thick, knotted trunks in the meadows of Roche, Vaud.

Visual Elements & Composition

Warm off-white paper dominates the sheet, with charcoal gray and graphite black building the trunks and crowns. The two trees stand close together, each dividing into a tangle of thin, loose shoots that spread upward into open paper. Heavier shading gathers where the trunks meet the ground and deep in the hollows of the wood, while the lighter areas are left almost untouched. A small shrub sits at the right, and faint marks at the base suggest grass. Handwritten notes in the upper right corner record the colour of the trees in light and shadow, along with the tones of the meadow, and the inscription reads "Roche, Vaud" beside the date, February 1899.

Meaning & Symbolism

Pollarded willows like these were a common sight in the meadows and along the watercourses of rural Switzerland and western Europe. Cutting the crown back at regular intervals produced a thick trunk and a dense cluster of new shoots, a practice tied to fodder, fencing and fuel. The drawing concentrates on that knotted structure, so the trees become studies of form rather than picturesque scenery. George Elbert Burr, the American artist named here, is known for landscape painting and etching, and this study reflects his habit of recording trees from life, with colour notes written on the sheet to guide later paintings.

Wear the Study Close

A drawing this quiet rewards a close look, and a tee sits against the body, so the tangle of branches stays in view as you move. The sketch's open paper and dark, dense trunks translate cleanly to a single front print, where the eye can follow each fork from the trunk outward.