Man in a Blue Smock by Paul Cezanne. Starting around 1887, using his wife and son as models, Cézanne began to paint single figures with the same gravity he had developed in his landscapes and still lifes. Around 1890 he extended his options by enlisting workers from his family’s estate in the south of France. The worker who posed for Man in a Blue Smock also posed for the famous Cardplayers compositions of the early 1890s. For the remainder of his career, Cézanne maintained his interest in making portraits of rural workers—if the term “portrait” can be applied to images of anonymous models posed as themselves in the studio.In the background of Man in a Blue Smock, Cézanne represented the right-hand section of a folding screen that was his very first work of art (around 1859, Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence).