1888／Oil on canvas
76.2 x 62.5 cm
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum –
Exhibition period：Saturday April 12～Sunday June 8, 2025
Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan)
SUMMARY
Pont-Aven, a small village in the Brittany region whose culture and customs retain a strong Celtic tradition, had attracted numerous painters since the 1860s. Gauguin, who had visited this village for the first time in 1886, was also attracted by the charm of the village, and stayed there four times between 1886 and 1894. This work was painted during Gauguin’s second stay in Pont-Aven. It exhibits the shift toward a more innovative composition and color palette while retaining the Impressionist elements. The impressive vertical tree trunk on the right side of the picture evokes the ukiyo-e prints by Utagawa Hiroshige. The tree trunk which constitutes an important component for this composition had in fact been painted out by a former owner after 1938. It was restored in recent years and returned to its original appearance. It is unknown, however, what meaning and intention this owner had in painting out the tree. In the place depicted in this painting, the river was dredged from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. On the deep right is a building with red thatched roof, and we can see that the earth and sand dredged up from the river is piled up on the path in front of the building. We can also see that the hillside on the left side is bare, and a road is being built there. Today, this area is used as a dock to moor boats. In October of the year when he painted this work, Gauguin was invited by Vincent van Gogh to visit Arles, and eventually started living with Gogh. Their living together, however, ended in tragedy in two months, and later, Gauguin would break away from the Impressionist style of portraying the visible world to create his own unique style which depicts the spiritual existence dwelling in a primitive form of human body with simplified colors and harmonized forms.
ARTIST
Paul Gauguin
1848-1903
List of artworks by the same artist
INFORMATION
Saturday, April 12 - Sunday, June 8, 2025
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Nagoya City Art Museum (Aichi, Japan)
Friday, July 26 - Monday, September 23, 2024
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Shizuoka City Museum of Art (Shizuoka, Japan)
Friday, July 28 - Sunday, August 27, 2023
Masterpieces of Modern Eastern and Western Painting Exhibition Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art (Ishikawa, Japan)
Saturday, March 18 - Sunday, June 11, 2023
La Bretagne, source d’inspiration : regards de peintres français et japonais The National Museum of Western Art (Tokyo, Japan)
Saturday, September 17 - Sunday, November 20, 2022
400 Years of Western Paintings – Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum – Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art and Design (Toyama, Japan)
Saturday, July 16 - Sunday, September 4, 2022
Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art (Kumamoto, Japan)
Saturday, March 19 - Sunday, May 8, 2022
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Saga Prefectural Art Museum (Saga, Japan)
Saturday, October 23 - Sunday, December 26, 2021
The 400 Years of Western Painting: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts (Tochigi, Japan)
Friday, July 9 - Sunday, August 29, 2021
400 Years of European Paintings: Masterpieces From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art (Okayama, Japan)
Tuesday, December 15 - Sunday, January 31, 2021
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Okinawa Prefectural Museum and Art Museum (Okinawa, Japan)
Saturday, September 12 - Tuesday, November 3, 2020
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Miyazaki Prefectural Art Museum (Miyazaki, Japan)
Wednesday, July 22 - Sunday, September 6, 2020
400 Years of Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Oita Prefectural Art Museum (Oita, Japan)
Thursday, February 20 - Sunday, April 12, 2020
How to Read Western Paintings: Masterpieces from Tokyo Fuji Art Museum The Museum of Modern Art, Ibaraki (Ibaraki, Japan)
Tuesday, September 3 - Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Masterpieces of European Paintings From Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Collection Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum (Yamaguchi, Japan)
Saturday, January 12 - Saturday, May 4, 2019
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Shanghai PowerLong Museum (Shanghai, China)
Tuesday, October 23 - Sunday, December 23, 2018
500 Years of Western Paintings: Collection of Tokyo Fuji Art Museum Tsinghua University Art Museum (Beijing, China)
Saturday, July 9 - Sunday, August 28, 2016
300 years of Western Painting from Baroque, Rococo to École de Paris Nagano Prefectural Shinano Art Museum (Nagano, Japan)
Saturday, January 9 - Sunday, February 7, 2016
UKIYOE JAPONISM: The Impressionist was fascinated by UKIYOE Hishikawa Moronobu Memorial Museum (Chiba, Japan)
Saturday, June 27 - Sunday, August 30, 2015
Feast of beauty: 300 years of Western Painting From Baroque, Rococo to Ecole de Paris Yawatahama Citizen Gallery (Ehime, Japan)
Wednesday, April 29 - Sunday, June 21, 2015
Feast of beauty: 300 years of Western Painting From Baroque, Rococo to Ecole de Paris The Tokushima Modern Art Museum (Tokushima, Japan)
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