Portrait of Gustave Boyer

Portrait of Gustave Boyer of 1870, in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, is an early work that shows Cézanne before the development of his mature systematic method, still experimenting with the gestural heavily impastoed technique of his early career. Boyer was an Aix-en-Provence friend from Cézanne's youth, and the portrait is one of several informal studies of his immediate circle from the late 1860s and early 1870s. The National Gallery of Canada built a significant collection of Post-Impressionist work in the mid-twentieth century, and this Cézanne provides a rare early point of comparison with his later development. The boldness of the early handling — broad palette knife strokes, simplified form — anticipates the structural ambitions of his mature style while belonging to a different technical register.

The early impasto technique is dramatically visible: paint is applied thickly and directly with a palette knife as much as a brush, creating a surface with physical presence quite unlike the carefully built modular strokes of the mature works. Tonal contrasts are sharp and unmediated, with deep shadows and strongly lit planes creating the dramatic relief that characterised Cézanne's Romantic-influenced early manner.