You are intruding upon a private feast, but in his olfactory trance, he is impervious to your presence. Bathed in blue light, Joyson's work distantly echoes a Picassian Blue Period painting, but the contrasts are rife and intriguing. The present subject is hale unlike his bread-eating counterparts in The Ascetic (1903) and The Blind Man's Meal (1903) whose lopsided and hollow countenances evidence their poverty. The muted blues in Picasso's paintings speak to the grim melancholy of his subjects' lives whereas the electric blue in Joyson's work gives the impression of security and comfort. It is offset, however, by the electric red that counters its tranquility, hinting at a burning unease. The serene eyes and the furrowed forehead, like the blue and the red tell different stories. Joyson wrote that he was affected by "the comfortable security [of] home" and the fates of migrant workers who are "wading across an ocean of uncertainty". He projected his helplessness and guilt onto his subject whose heavy robes weigh him down. His crouching posture and his closed eyes represent an escape from and, simultaneously, the inescapability of reality. Compare this with the elderly man in Eric Enstrom's Grace (1918). He, too, is bent over his meal, but more in gratitude than in distress. Similarly, Corbert Gauthier's Christ in Bread of Life shows a calm disposition as he consecrates bread.

Unlike his aforementioned Picassian counterparts, who clutch a meager heel of bread, our man is on the verge of devouring an entire loaf. The prominent gold highlights on his beard and lips draw our attention not merely to his hunger but also to the fact that food is a luxury. He almost seems like someone furtively opening a satchel of gold. The title of the painting merits a discussion of its own. Literally, it delivers, but its significance doesn't end there.
It prompts an unavoidable reminiscence of the biblical course of breaking bread. From the Feeding of the Five Thousand to the Last Supper all the way to the Acts of the Apostles, the breaking of bread was a communal and not a solitary affair. The darkness effectively heightens the subject's loneliness by obscuring the details of his surroundings.