Paysage a Saint-Cloud by Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin's 1885 painting Paysage à Saint-Cloud did not fare well with the critics at the eighth exhibition. When compared to Seurat's scientific formulations, Gauguin's naturalist landscapes were dismissed as classic Impressionism: competent, well-painted, but nothing new and pale next to the "old masters" such as Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet. Gauguin soon rejected the naturalist approach evident in Paysage à Saint-Cloud for an art based on memory and imagination.

Paul Gauguin's Paysage à Saint-Cloud (oil on canvas, 22x39-3/8 inches) is part of the Joan Whitney Payson Collection at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.

Critical attacks prompted Paul Gauguin to seek other modes of artistic expression. On the next page we'll find an example of Gauguin moving in a different direction.

For more on Impressionist paintings, artists, and art history, see:

• Impressionism
• Vincent van Gogh
• Claude Monet