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While creating a balanced composition founded on a Renaissance painting attributed to Raphael, Cézanne paints the human being as an object, refusing to soften his manner or to be diverted by psychological details. For him, nature, objects, and people compose a single material world, reproducible through paint. This unity is underlined by one of his own still-lifes, which serves as the background of the portrait.
The model for this painting is believed to have been the gardener Alexander Polin.
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