I’m not sure what you mean by your last sentence. Artworks have layers of meaning, which change over time and according to the viewer's own particular experiences and thoughts. You thought of the musculature of the man and engaged with it on that level. Because I'm a 19th century historian I thought about the media networks and historical events that Cezanne was embedded in, including abolitionism and slavery, and how they impacted on what he created. Forgive me if I'm misinterpreted your response but you seem annoyed that I would even discuss the fact that this is an image of a black man leaning on a cotton bale, and that it could therefore be interpreted as an image about slavery. As for art and politics, I do think all art is political, even art that has no obvious political subject matter. The Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei is interesting on this particular subject as he talks about the freedom of expression (and therefore lack of freedom for some) and I'll be posting about it another time.