Interpretive Resource

Paul Cézanne painted Hortense Fiquet, his companion starting in 1869 and his wife from 1886, some twenty-four times. The present work is one of a related quartet of canvases in which she is shown wearing a distinctive carmine dress and seated in a yellow chair. The largest work in this group (New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art) is one of the artist’s most elaborate portraits, incorporating a curtain, fire tongs, and the edge of a mirrored mantelpiece. In the Art Institute’s example, however, Cézanne aimed for something more austere.

Here, as in all four compositions, the unit formed by Madame Cézanne and the chair is oddly askew. The unconventional dynamism that results is accentuated by Cézanne’s elision of the bend at her hip, which prompts doubt as to whether she is sitting or standing. A wine-red band above the wainscoting, noticeably wider on the left than on the right, acts as a visual prop, countering the tilt of figure and chair.

Although the sitter’s features are recognizable, they are radically simplified in a way that evokes a primitive totem. Her hands are not fully articulated, their forms appearing to coalesce from blank canvas before our eyes. Cézanne’s mastery of his materials is evident in the delicate color chords of the background, the opalescent face, and the vibrant dabs and strokes of the dress. Formal relationships are carefully gauged: cryptic shadows and upholstery motifs seem to converse animatedly with one another, while the elongated oval of the figure’s head is echoed by the majestic curve of the arms. With its emphasis on process and contrivance, this is one of Cézanne’s most concentrated essays on the dynamic nature of perception, and on the mysterious intractability of another’s psychic life.