The Thieves and the Donkey

Cezanne painted this around 1870, in his early thirties, still working in thick, dark, almost violent paint, years before the calm landscapes he is known for. The subject comes from a fable by La Fontaine: two thieves come to blows over a stolen donkey while a third quietly leads it away. La Fontaine had meant it as a jab at kingdoms fighting over some province that a neighbour then pockets. That summer the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and Cezanne slipped off to the coast near Marseille to dodge the draft. Here the paint is shoved around with a palette knife, the two fighters a knot of limbs, the donkey almost an afterthought at the centre.