Return from the Hunt c. 1902

This is Gauguin’s "Return from the Hunt," a drawing, most likely in charcoal or maybe conte crayon, with all the wonderful smudgy, chalky, and soft effects that brings. What strikes me is how Gauguin embraces the physical process of drawing. It's all about mark-making. Check out how Gauguin uses hatching and cross-hatching, creating dense, almost felt-like textures. The way he varies the pressure and direction of his strokes builds up the forms of the figures, horse, and landscape, but look closely and you can see that the individual marks aren’t really about describing a thing, but more about the artist’s process. I'm particularly drawn to the area around the trees in the background. See how those chaotic lines create a dense, mysterious space. It's a bit like when you’re painting and you get lost in the physicality of the medium. You are not depicting something real but rather translating something real into the language of art. In this, I see echoes of artists like Odilon Redon, who also conjured dreamlike, symbolist worlds through charcoal.