Self Portrait (1882–1885)

This intense self portrait was complete by Paul Cezanne somewhere between the years of 1882–1885. It features his trademark stare, directed at us with a menacing danger which appears across most of his work within this important, expressive genre.

We find the beard greying with Cezanne here and he produced so many self portraits that one can track changes such as these over time. He wears a thick coat over a shirt and tie which is how he normally presented himself, whatever the activities of the day. As with Self Portrait - Artist Looking Over his Shoulder, his hairline by now is down the back and sides of his head, with baldness across the main part of his head. His nose was always a prominent structure and in this painting it captures some of the light which comes in from our left hand side. The rest of the room is dark, matching his own mood. Those able to see the piece in person will likely marvel at the subtlety of colour that he was able to implement into the painting. He would practice his own image so frequently that he probably learnt how to create self portraits without even looking at himself towards the end of his career.

This painting is 37cm wide by 45cm tall. It has been located in Russia since 1948. On further examination of this painting, we can determine that Cezanne slightly emphasised the spherical nature of his head more than might have been true, and that his nose was also longer within his own depictions than can be seen in photos of the artist. Perhaps he developed his own image of himself over time that slowly separated from reality, like a caricature, but these are all very subtle differences that many would never notice. Structure was always an important part of his work, whether portraits such as this or when painting old buildings around his father's estate.

The piece can be found within the collection of the The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Russia. Whilst they own several items from his career, there are not many Cezanne paintings to be found elsewhere within the country, making this piece an important addition. In terms of the geographical spread of his work, most remains within his native France, elsewhere in Europe and then further afield in the US. There is also a good blend between private and public collections, allowing us all to see a good selection of his career highlights without too much difficulty. Russia itself has played a major role within European art, particularly in the 20th century and there has also been a good number of prominent Russian collectors who have been based abroad but eventually took much of their collections back to their homeland, before eventually gifting them to museums such as the Pushkin.