Louis Guillaume

Paul Cezanne

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the chest up, a young boy wearing an aquamarine-blue jacket sits facing us in this vertical portrait painting. His body is slightly angled to our right and he looks just over our right shoulder. He has close-cropped, dark hair. His features and clothing are painted in patchworks of colors. For example, his pale face is painted with swipes of peach, straw yellow, stone blue, and olive green, especially around his large, dark eyes and small, cherry-red mouth. The scarf knotted around his neck is painted with daubs of light and azure blue, teal, putty gray, and white. His voluminous jacket has touches of red, blue, and lighter shades of green. He sits in a corner with walls washed with shades of aqua and turquoise. The rail of a brown chair curves behind his right shoulder, on our left, and is cut off by the left edge of the canvas. A cluster of darker green, leaf-like shapes suggest a design on the wall to our right.