Paul Cézanne, Study of a plaster Cupid

This drawing is the product of an enquiry sustained over a period of thirty years. Cézanne began making studies of the plaster Cupid in the mid-1870s and continued throughout the rest of his life. He analysed the sculpture from different perspectives and combined it with other still-life elements in two oil paintings, four watercolours and eleven drawings, leaving no angle unexplored. Here the figure is constructed out of areas of shading which perform the same function as the bundles of brush marks in his paintings, while the reserves of the paper are left to express the highlights on the figure’s plump musculature, adding to the sense of three-dimensionality. The dynamic thrust of the figure is accentuated by emphasis on the left leg; the right leg is merely implied.