Page 91 - Highlights of the Collection

Paul Gauguin [1848-1903]

Children Wrestling

France, Pont-Aven, 1888
93 × 73 cm, oil on canvas

Gauguin’s discovery of Japanese woodblock printing in
1887 had a lasting influence on his pictorial style. For
example, in this wrestling match painted in Brittany,
Highlights of the Collection he treats space without the use of perspective. The

depth of the scene is suggested by the presence of
clothing at the bottom right and the nebulous triangle
at the top left delimited by an oblique line evoking
the fukibokashi, a subtle gradation of ink used by
Louvre Abu Dhabi Hiroshige, a master of Japanese woodblock printing,
to give his landscapes an atmospheric and poetic
dimension. The flat green expanse between the two
features the highly schematised silhouettes of the
two children, outlined in black.

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