Homage to Cézanne

1900

Oil on canvas, 182 × 243.5 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Nine men and one woman crowd a room hung with other paintings. The large canvas works as a group portrait and a public statement.

The younger generation names its model in public, gathering around a still life by the older master. It links this circle directly to his way of building pictures.
The 1901 Salon of the Société nationale des beaux-arts gave it its first showing.
Look at the far left, where Odilon Redon listens to Paul Sérusier.
The figures stand in a row, following earlier group homages by Fantin-Latour.
The writer André Gide gave it to the Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, in 1928.

The scene is set in Ambroise Vollard's gallery in Paris. The still life on the easel once belonged to Paul Gauguin.