Woman in Front of a Still Life by Cezanne
1890
Medium
Oil on linen canvas
Dimensions
65.3 × 54.9 cm (25 11/16 × 21 5/8 in.); Framed: 82.9 × 73.4 × 10.5 cm (32 5/8 × 28 7/8 × 4 1/8 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
16648
Art Historical Context
Paul Gauguin’s *Woman in Front of a Still Life by Cézanne* (1890) captures a quiet moment of artistic admiration. Painted in oil on linen canvas, the work places a seated woman before a still life by Paul Cézanne, Gauguin’s contemporary and occasional correspondent. At roughly 65 by 55 centimeters, the intimate scale invites close viewing, allowing visitors to appreciate the subtle dialogue between two Post-Impressionist masters. By 1890 Gauguin was already moving away from Impressionism toward the bolder colors and simplified forms of Synthetism. Including a Cézanne still life within his own...
About the Artist
Paul Gauguin · 1848–1903
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French Post-Impressionist painter whose bold experiments with color, form, and subject matter made him one of the most influential figures in the transition from 19th-century art to modernism. His rejection of European civilization for the perceived authenticity of 'primitive' cultures established an archetype of artistic exile that continues to resonate. Gauguin's ...