Seated man 1914

Roger de La Fresnaye made this painting, titled "Seated Man", using oil on canvas. I can only imagine what it must have been like for the artist to bring this image into being. The subdued palette of blues, greys and browns makes me think of the artist juggling the geometry of Cubism with the weight of portraiture. The face is broken up by a few simple rectangles: it's less about capturing a likeness, more about assembling an image through shape. Check out the way the artist has represented the legs, with a soft gradient of color creating volume; that subtle touch is contrasted with the hard geometry of the background. I see the push and pull between representation and abstraction, something that lots of painters were dealing with in the wake of Cezanne and Picasso. It’s like they are asking: how much information do you really need?