Two women on the beach by Paul Gauguin

The rest and intimacy of Pacific women offer a privileged subject for exploring new chromatic harmonies based on decorative simplification. With the canvas entitled “Two women on the beach”, the innovative painter Paul Gauguin delivers a peaceful vision of island life, stripped of any romantic anecdote. The work ranks among the most radical plastic researches of the era, favoring the arrangement of colored surfaces over three-dimensional perspective.

Installed directly on the sandy ground tinted with yellow and ochre, two female figures occupy the pictorial space in contrasting poses. On the left, a woman seen from a three-quarter back view leans on her arm, sporting a blue blouse and a red pareo scattered with large white floral motifs. On the right, her companion faces the viewer, sitting cross-legged in an ample pink dress with long sleeves, her hands busy weaving golden plant fibers. At their feet rest a tiare flower and a circular container. In the background, the beach is bordered by a dark blue sea topped by a thin fringe of white foam under an invisible sky.

The craftsman’s dexterity is asserted in the powerful contrast between the flat areas of bright colors and the softness of bodily volumes. His technical mastery of oil painting allows him to account for the heaviness of the fabrics and the matte quality of the sand. The bold and balanced composition underlines the author’s stylistic modernity.