Cézanne’s wife, Hortense Fiquet, was his most frequent—and perhaps most patient—model, the subject of nearly thirty portraits. Here, the compressed space and blank facial expression make the sitter appear at once close and distant. Green touches of paint on her face cover more naturalistic shadows, contributing to the work’s distinctively modern character, and resonate with Cézanne’s own description of his work as a “harmony parallel to nature.”
