Praying Man (L'Homme en prière)

Discussion

FROM THE BARNES FOUNDATION’S CATALOG

Chaim Soutine is known for working in series. For Soutine, repetition was a really a strategy for expressing originality: each portrait is meant as a fresh encounter between a material subject and his own perception. Here, we see the lanky figure of a bald, elderly man sitting on a wooden chair with his gnarled hands folded (in prayer?) across his lap. His body is elongated, like the canvas itself; positioned frontally, the man resembles a Byzantine icon or Gothic statue.

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