Paul Cézanne, Portrait Romantique, 1868-70

When Cézanne was about thirty, he came to Paris from his native Aix-en-Provence at the urging of his close childhood friend Émile Zola. During this period both men were young, poor, and passionately immersed in the notions of romantic bohemian life exuded in the Paris of the 1860’s. Cézanne, conflicted and insecure, was prey to many doubts and extreme changes of mood, and was often helped out of his period of discouragement by Zola’s devoted friendship. Another childhood friend who supported and encouraged Cézanne in these difficult years was the geologist Fortune Marion, who is perhaps the subject of this portrait.

This important work from the early, often misunderstood period of Cézanne’s artistic development – a period of arduous experimentation – is one which bridges the great movements of the 19th century in France. As a provincial, Cézanne was deeply affected by the masters of French painting whose work he saw for the first time in Paris. From Courbet, he is inspired to use thick, sensuous application of paint, almost modeled like clay. In the bold, flat planes of the portrait he reveals his admiration for Manet, the most controversial artist in Paris. And yet the image of this fiery young man, whose personality is barely contained within his profile, harks back as well to the painting of the Géricault and the first phase of romanticism at the beginning of the century. In addition to the echoes of his predecessors, the taut structure, the angular layering of paint, and the disciplined yet idioscyncratic way of seeing that are also important elements of the Portrait Romantique, foretell the cool, classical images of Cézanne’s mature style.