1897, Paul Cezanne, Man in a Blue Smock -- National Gallery of Art (Washington) (special exhibition)
From the exhibition label: This dignified farmworker is seated at Cézanne’s family home in Aix in front of a painted screen the artist had decorated as a young man. The background scene includes a young lady holding a parasol — a depiction of pastoral leisure perhaps ironically or humorously juxtaposed with the rural laborer. Joachim Gasquet, a writer from Aix and friend of the artist, mentioned this portrait in his description of a visit to Cézanne’s studio. There he saw “some canvases in which sturdy peasants . . . gain a respite from their work. One especially in his blue smock, adorned with his red scarf, arms dangling, is admirable in his ruggedness, as if incarnated as this massive and magnificent flesh, baked by the sun and buffeted by the wind.”
1897, Paul Cezanne, Man in a Blue Smock -- National Gallery of Art (Washington) (special exhibition)
From the exhibition label: This dignified farmworker is seated at Cézanne’s family home in Aix in front of a painted screen the artist had decorated as a young man. The background scene includes a young lady holding a parasol — a depiction of pastoral leisure perhaps ironically or humorously juxtaposed with the rural laborer. Joachim Gasquet, a writer from Aix and friend of the artist, mentioned this portrait in his description of a visit to Cézanne’s studio. There he saw “some canvases in which sturdy peasants . . . gain a respite from their work. One especially in his blue smock, adorned with his red scarf, arms dangling, is admirable in his ruggedness, as if incarnated as this massive and magnificent flesh, baked by the sun and buffeted by the wind.”