A painter at work on a house wall, 1875

About the Work

A double painting of sorts: as a colourful and thick relief, Adolphe Monticelli’s small-format wooden panel shows a man standing on scaffolding and painting a façade. The work addresses the significance of colour as a material both through the motif and its rich application of paint – to a certain extent the Marseille artist’s trademark. While many contemporaries reacted with incomprehension to Monticelli’s unusual painting style, artists such as Cézanne and van Gogh admired him. The latter even went so far as to describe him as his most important role model.