Le Cheval Blanc
Paul Gauguin
PAUL GAUGUIN, 1898. OIL ON CANVAS.
Gauguin roamed through Tahiti, exploring the wild countryside and mountainous regions of the country. He was enchanted by an abundant natural beauty that seemed missing form his life in France and studied the flora and fauna obsessively. Yet this painting is a synthetic vision, an idealised and manufactured version of the landscape borne out of his imagination. He presents the landscape as a paradise; a white horse, tinged green by the plant life its sheen reflects, drinks from the river while two nude figures ride off in the distance. In Tahiti, Gauguin saw a sort of Eden and the two nude figures in the background, a part of nature rather than separate from it, can be understood as Adam and Eve. Now considered one of his masterpieces, the Tahitian pharmacist who commissioned the work rejected it on the basis that the horse was two green.