Riders on the Beach

Paul Gauguin painted Riders on the Beach on the shore of Atuana, which he could see from his last native home. This work is reminiscent of Degas' paintings and exemplifies Gauguin’s prowess which he sustained until the end, sick though he was. Although its setting is different from Degas' elegant scenes of the Longchamps track, its space, isolation of figures, clarity of outline making each horse a closed form, and sense of rhythmic interval are all akin to the older master's vision. The handling suggests both the past and the future. The brush strokes of the sky, even its color, hark back to the Impressionists, but the pink of the foreground, which is Gauguin's own, points forward to the Fauves. Beyond the Fauves, these pastel shades, the sparseness of the horses, and the symbolic shorthand of the two riders on the upper right take after Picasso, only done a little later.