Landscape with a Horse, Paul Gauguin (1899)
Paul Gauguin traveled to the French colony of Tahiti in the 1890s in search of an unspoilt Eden and a counterpoint to the decadence and spiritual bankruptcy of European civilization. He became fascinated by the lush tropical landscape of the island; here he paints a group of huts and a single wild horse against a range of distant, looming mountains. Gauguin employs his trademark areas of flat, arbitrary color for decorative effect while his rough burlap canvas creates an intentionally unrefined paint surface.
