Полдень в Неаполе

This dates from about 1875, when Cezanne was in his 30s and still a provocateur rather than the grave master of later legend. The Salon had rejected him year after year, and instead of softening his work he pushed it further. Here a naked couple sprawls across a bed while a servant pulls back a curtain and brings in refreshments, painted in thick, loaded strokes and heated reds. An earlier version of the same subject, which he called The Wine Grog, had already caused an uproar in the press. The lighter title, Afternoon in Naples, came from his friend the painter Antoine Guillemet, playing on a French notion of Italy as a land of heat, idleness and easy pleasure.