And the Gold of Their Bodies 1901

Paul Gauguin made And the Gold of Their Bodies with oil on canvas, probably in 1901. The painting is a process of building up layers; hatching, cross-hatching, creating a surface that feels almost woven. The painting is luscious and strange. I'm drawn to the purple ground; Gauguin has built up the color in layers. The weave of canvas peeks through, especially on the right side of the picture. Up close, you can see the individual marks, and the way the colors shift and change as the eye moves across the surface. The bodies are gold, but they’re also made of browns, ochres, and greens. There’s a real physicality to the medium; you can feel the presence of the artist in every stroke. Gauguin, like Van Gogh, knew Impressionism, but wanted to take it further, into something stranger. The Fauves like Matisse would follow in his footsteps, using unnatural color as a way to evoke emotion and create a sense of the exotic. It's a reminder that art is always in conversation with itself, building on what came before, pushing into new territories.