Base and superstructure

"Given Soutine's almost archetypal background of suffering and deprivation -- born to poverty in a Lithuanian village, thrashed as a boy for his 'un-Jewish' interest in image making, then living penniless for years in Paris before his paintings sold -- we might consider these Ceret paintings metaphors for his hard-won life as an artist. In any case, he was never, after achieving financial stability (the American collector Dr. Albert Barnes bought 100 of the Ceret works), to paint in quite this way again."

-- New York Times