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Lot Essay
Painted in 1879, Bord de rivière dates from a pivotal moment in Paul Gauguin's artistic development. Still employed as a stockbroker in Paris, Gauguin was increasingly devoted to painting and had been invited to participate in the fourth Impressionist exhibition that year. His friendship with Camille Pissarro proved particularly formative. During the summer of 1879, Gauguin joined the older artist in Pontoise, where the two painted alongside one another, exploring the quiet charm of the surrounding countryside. As Richard R. Brettell observed, the "extraordinary surfaces" and "banal rural imagery" of Pissarro's paintings made a profound impression on the younger artist (R. Brettell, "Gauguin the Collector, Gauguin the Impressionist," in Gauguin and Impressionism, New Haven, 2005, p. 55).
Despite the simplicity of its rural subject, Bord de rivière is a wonderfully nuanced study of the effects of light and atmosphere. Gauguin captures the landscape through a rich tapestry of color and varied brushwork, translating its natural textures into a vibrant painted surface. A patchwork of long blue, gray and lavender strokes animates the expansive sky, while delicate horizontal dabs of color evoke the gentle movement of the water below. At left, a solitary tree rises above the riverbank, its feathery foliage seemingly rustling in the breeze. The reflection of the surrounding vegetation in the water is rendered through a shimmering interplay of blues, greens and silvery grays, dissolving the distinction between landscape and its mirrored image.
The painting's loose, lively facture speaks to Pissarro's mentorship and the Impressionist emphasis on capturing fleeting sensations of light and color. Yet even at this early stage, Gauguin was beginning to develop a pictorial language of his own. Rather than simply recording the changing effects of nature, he imposes a deliberate sense of structure upon the landscape, organizing the composition into broad horizontal bands of sky, meadow and water, punctuated by the strong vertical accents of the tree and wooden posts in the foreground. The contrast between the restless, almost turbulent brushwork of the sky and the more measured arrangement of the landscape below lends the composition a distinctive sense of rhythm and balance. Color, too, begins to serve a purpose beyond the faithful transcription of natural light, as the rich greens of the fields and cool blues of the river become increasingly defined areas within the composition. While still firmly rooted in Impressionism, this growing emphasis on the simplification of forms and the expressive possibilities of color anticipates the more radical pictorial innovations of Gauguin's later career. At once tranquil and richly animated, Bord de rivière thus reveals an artist already beginning to look beyond the immediate sensations of nature toward a more personal interpretation of the landscape.
Despite the simplicity of its rural subject, Bord de rivière is a wonderfully nuanced study of the effects of light and atmosphere. Gauguin captures the landscape through a rich tapestry of color and varied brushwork, translating its natural textures into a vibrant painted surface. A patchwork of long blue, gray and lavender strokes animates the expansive sky, while delicate horizontal dabs of color evoke the gentle movement of the water below. At left, a solitary tree rises above the riverbank, its feathery foliage seemingly rustling in the breeze. The reflection of the surrounding vegetation in the water is rendered through a shimmering interplay of blues, greens and silvery grays, dissolving the distinction between landscape and its mirrored image.
The painting's loose, lively facture speaks to Pissarro's mentorship and the Impressionist emphasis on capturing fleeting sensations of light and color. Yet even at this early stage, Gauguin was beginning to develop a pictorial language of his own. Rather than simply recording the changing effects of nature, he imposes a deliberate sense of structure upon the landscape, organizing the composition into broad horizontal bands of sky, meadow and water, punctuated by the strong vertical accents of the tree and wooden posts in the foreground. The contrast between the restless, almost turbulent brushwork of the sky and the more measured arrangement of the landscape below lends the composition a distinctive sense of rhythm and balance. Color, too, begins to serve a purpose beyond the faithful transcription of natural light, as the rich greens of the fields and cool blues of the river become increasingly defined areas within the composition. While still firmly rooted in Impressionism, this growing emphasis on the simplification of forms and the expressive possibilities of color anticipates the more radical pictorial innovations of Gauguin's later career. At once tranquil and richly animated, Bord de rivière thus reveals an artist already beginning to look beyond the immediate sensations of nature toward a more personal interpretation of the landscape.