Antoine Dominique Sauveur Aubert, the Artist's Uncle, as a Monk

Paul Cézanne

Oil on canvas

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cézanne's uncle Dominique Aubert gazes downward in thick, impasto-laden robes of white, his weathered face emerging from heavy shadow with startling directness. Painted with a palette knife in bold, slab-like strokes, this early work reveals the young Cézanne wrestling with Courbet's realism and his own fierce independence from academic polish. Aubert was a willing, patient model who posed repeatedly for Cézanne in a series of costume studies, here cast as a hooded monk clutching a simple cross. This raw, intensely physical portrait offers a fascinating glimpse of the artist before his mature style, full of brooding psychological weight and tactile paint surface that rewards close viewing.