![]() The road up |
From the Bührle Foundation, Zürich, Switzerland:
Gauguin's collaboration with Pissarro and Cézanne in Pontoise in 1881, especially his close cooperation with Pissarro in the nearby village of Osny in 1883, was bound to strengthen Gauguin's artistic self-confidence and to give him the feeling of inner assurance that he could transcend his admired masters and models. The consequence was that in 1883, without his wife's knowledge, who in that year had her fifth child, he gave up his banking career to devote himself exclusively to painting. In order to reduce expenses for the large family, the Gauguins moved in 1884 to Rouen. Here he continues in the direction taken previously at Osny, and produces this small impressionistic study of an ascending country road bordered by red-roofed houses.