Boy in a Red Waistcoat

English

Boy in a Red Waistcoat: Paul Cezanne

Price: Price on Request
Art Type: Oil Painting
Size:
English Comments: 0
International Comments: 0
Creating Date:
Introduction and Works of Paul Cezanne >>

Contemporary-Art.org

Reproduction

Enlarge

Paul Cezanne Oil Painting - Boy in a Red Waistcoat

Keywords: Boy, Red, Waistcoat

Work Overview: Boy in a Red Waistcoat
Paul Cézanne
1888-1890
oil on canvas
overall: 89.5 x 72.4 cm (35 1/4 x 28 1/2 in.)
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art

This is, at once, an astonishingly modern painting and one that reflects Cézanne's admiration for and connection to the past. He said himself that he "wanted to make of impressionism something solid and durable like the art of the museums." The boy's pose is that of an academic life study, and for some art historians it has recalled the languid elegance of 16th–century portraiture. As a young man in Paris, Cézanne had learned his art not only from his impressionist colleagues but also through studying old masters in the Louvre.

On the other hand, it is possible to see this so–called portrait as an entity of shapes and colors. Notice the paints used in the hands and face: these greens and mauves have little to do with human flesh. The almost dizzying background of angles and gentle arcs, which are difficult at first to "read" as draperies and a chair back, divide space rather than define it. A work such as this looks forward to the reconstructed pictorial space of the cubists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, leading one noted critic to write, "Cézanne's art ...lies between the old kind of picture, faithful to a striking or beautiful object, and the modern 'abstract' kind of painting, a moving harmony of color touches representing nothing."

-----------------
Boy in a Red Vest, 1895, is one of a class of late paintings with a pensive, youthful figure; there is an example in which a boy sits at a table beside a skull. Here the languid posture and the close envelopment by heavy sloping drapes convey the mood of depressed revery, without pointing to its theme. The boy, wrapped in a costume that resembles in substance the oppressive drapes around him, looks shrouded in his space. The red vest, too, is an element of the mood. This exceptional core of strong color is not expansive, but tends toward the cool and violet; the blues of the tie and sash are dark and greyed. The conventional classic pose of the academy nude, with one hand on the hip and the other hanging - a relaxed pose of movement and momentary rest - has become a posture of passivity and weakness. We measure against the limp, inert arm the delicacy of the balanced tiltings of the limbs and the great force of the repeated diagonal masses of the drapes. The long melancholy figure, with its sad grace, recalls the aristocratic Italian portraits of the sixteenth century in which activity has been arrested by introspection and doubt. Vague as they are, the boy's features are delicately drawn; we cannot help noting his shyness and troubled inner life. The faintly drawn lips are like the wings of a distant flying bird.

In contrast to this subdued tonality of feeling - surely important to Cezanne - the painting is vigorous and powerful, with that noble largeness of form we admire in the High Renaissance masters (Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio ), and with a wonderful sonority and liveness of color realized through the animated brushwork, Cezanne's alone. It is a visibly arranged, formalized composition in which the self-balancing structure of the boy's pliant body is in turn opposed to the long rhythmical forms of the drapes and chair in alternating contrasts. The drapes, straight at the left, are curved at the right; the body, more bent and curved at the left, is rigid at the right. This highly imaginative composition, so carefully thought out, owes little to a direct impression. But the details of color and contour, in their infinite variation, betray the searching, sensitive eye, open to the visible world.

There is indeed a connection between works of these two masters. Both Cezanne and Modigliani were faithful to tradition, and sought inspiration in history, at the same time adorning their canvases with something brutally modern and infected with abstraction. There’s no doubt that Modigliani was influenced by Cezanne, for his early paintings are very unlike the nudes which later celebrated him. Sombre and grey, with solid brush strokes they evoke the spirit of Cezanne’s series of ‘boys in a red vest’. Even though Modigliani later found his own artistic direction, Cezanne’s spirit occasionally lurks even in the most unusual paintings.

I am not a big fan of Cezanne, but I must say that his painting ‘Boy in a Red Waistcoat‘ (along with his numerous depictions of skulls), has striked me at first sight; what emotional depth, what drab mood, what a mystery? I instantly loved everything about it! Cezanne rarely bothered to date his paintings, or even name them, but it is assumed that these four paintings, ‘Boy in a Red Vest‘ series, were created between 1888 and 1890. Cezanne seemed to have a flair for painting the same scenes again and again, with a few changes, but each reflecting a different mood.

Just to be clear, I am going to be discussing my favourite out of these four paintings, which is the one above (they all bear the same name and I don’t want any misunderstanding.) The painting shows a boy dressed in a traditional Italian attire, standing in a classical pose; one hand on the hip, other hanging – a pose of resignation and passivity fitting for a drab yet powerful mood of the painting. Amidst all the bleak greys and boring browns, there’s a red vest that exudes aura of decadency and power. Blue tones occasionally peak like rays of sunshine. Sun can be blue if one sees it that way. The most exciting aspect of this painting are the brushstrokes; heavy and serious. Using only a few basic autumnal colours, Cezanne painted a magnificently intricate background, in some parts even blended with the boy’s trousers, in others cheekily standing out from the red waistcoat. Depth was achieved by adding visibly darker tones around the elbow and the shoulders. Despite the seeming roughness, a scene is perfectly balanced, sad and harmonious.

The boy was a professional model named Michelangelo di Rosa. His face reveals to us a troubled inner live, sadness, shyness, fear and doubt. His lips are shaped ‘like the wings of a distant bird‘. A figure at once melancholic and graceful, evokes the spirit of the 16th century Italian aristocratic portraits by mannerist masters. Clad in a romantic costume of Italian peasant, the boy seems so fragile and vulnerable, secretive and passive – retaining a position of eternal mystery. Cezanne’s portraits are, just like Modigliani’s, nothing but silent confirmations of life.

Copyright Statement:
All the reproduction of any forms about this work unauthorized by Singing Palette including images, texts and so on will be deemed to be violating the Copyright Laws.
To cite this webpage, please link back here.

>> English Comments >> Chinese Comments >> French Comments >> German Comments >>Report

Paul Cezanne

Work Overview