the amateur return

Among these early paintings which, as yet unaffected by formal training, reveal something of Cezanne's basic talent, one of the most original is the larger-than-life Portrait of Louis-Auguste Cezanne, which shows the bulky figure of his father perched on a fragile chair, cap on head, reading a newspaper. The execution seems almost ostentatiously crude, especially in the bright red, unperspectival floor and the muddled brushwork of coat and trousers; but the face, shaped by heavy, wirelike contours, is memorable in its distinctive ugliness.