''Portrait of Louis Guillaume'' is an oil-on-canvas portrait painted c. 1882 by the French Post-impressionist artist

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

. Guillaume was the son of friends of the artist and a friend of Cézanne's son, Paul. Here he is portrayed in a highly sculpted manner with a near-expressionless, uncommunicative face, and an immobile, lifeless body. In form and complexity, the painting is ahead of its time. It contains many abstractions, mostly in its presentation of the head and body as simple, solid shapes,Schapiro, 68 a technique later taken up and developed by

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...

. The work's low-key colours, mostly greys, whites and dark greens, achieve a sombre tone, echoed by the shy reserve on the boy's face. While his skin is rendered with pearly white paint, giving the surface a lively sheen or glow, this contrasts with his black, severely cropped hair and dark clothes, while his eyes are only black hollows. Heavy-lidded, they are, according to art critic

Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...

, "without spiritual light ... they belong to a world of shadow." One critic famously wrote that Cézanne painted the heads of friends as if they were apples, and that sense of cool detachment is evident in this work. Its formal qualities are reminiscent of a still-life or landscape, however while at first look there is evidence of the artist's awareness of the "abyss between human beings", there are signs of hope and connection in the delicately rendered tones of the cheeks, the ornament of the wall, the folds of the dress, and the

cravat Cravat, cravate or cravats may refer to: * Cravat (early), forerunner neckband of the modern necktie * Cravat, British name for what in American English is called an ascot tie * Cravat bandage, a triangular bandage * Cravat (horse) (1935–1954), a ...

which echoes the verticals of the folds of the face and wall. The painting was purchased by Ambroise Vollard by 1906. It was sold to a Florentine collector c 1907 before it was sold in 1927 to

Chester Dale Chester Dale (May 3, 1883 – December 16, 1962) was an American banker and patron of the arts. Dale earned large sums from working for the New York Stock Exchange, allowing him to collect 19th and 20th-century French paintings. Although he consi ...

in New York. In 1963 Dale donated the work to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.Louis Guillaume, c. 1882
. National Gallery of Art. Retrieved 22 April 2017.

References

Sources

* Schapiro, Meyer. ''Cézanne''. Harry N. Abrams, 2004. {{Paul Cézanne

Guillaume Guillaume may refer to: People * Guillaume (given name), the French equivalent of William * Guillaume (surname) Other uses * Guillaume (crater) See also * '' Chanson de Guillaume'', an 11th or 12th century poem * Guillaume affair, a Cold War espi ...

1880s paintings

Paintings in the National Gallery of Art