\paperw19995 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 The picture is a portrait of a man with a moustache who is wearing a hat and smoking a small pipe of white clay. Behind him
a still life by CΘzanne, which is now in Berlin, hangs on the wall. The scene appears to be set in the artistÆs studio and the man may have been a peasant who worked on his estate at Bouffan.\par
Here the theme of the smoker, which was common in sevente
enth-century painting, does not serve as a pretext for representing the individual, but rather for a psychological study. In fact the man has a dreamy, absent-minded expression, which is effectively conveyed by representing his eyes as a two small black
holes. The smoke seems to have encircled him in a curtain of oblivion that relieves him from the anxieties of daily life.\par
For CΘzanne, this subject û like any other, for that matter û was interesting because it offered the possibility of studying re
ality, of deconstructing and reconstructing it according to his own lucid vision, which was made up of solid forms and volumes.\par
