Mardi Gras

Painted c.1888 and now at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Mardi Gras depicts two costumed figures — Harlequin and Pierrot — posed in Cézanne's studio in Paris. The models were his son Paul and a friend of Paul's, Édouard Jourdain. Theatrical subjects were unusual for Cézanne, who generally rejected anecdotal or literary content, but the commedia dell'arte costumes gave him an opportunity to study contrasting colour and pattern in a figure composition. The painting is a rare instance of costumed performance in his work and demonstrates his ability to maintain structural rigour even with theatrically charged subject matter.

The Harlequin's diamond-patterned costume — red, black, and white lozenges — creates a strong geometric pattern that Cézanne uses to structure the canvas. The adjacent Pierrot in white provides a tonal anchor. The two figures are built with the same structural method as his card players — solid forms in shallow space, the interaction between their postures creating compositional tension. The floor's perspective is deliberately compressed.