The Call 1902

Paul Gauguin made this painting, The Call, with oil on canvas, and what strikes me first is the luscious surface of reds and pinks that feel like a fever dream. The marks are loose, almost haphazard, which to me, reveals the art-making process, the choices, the changes of mind. Look at the lower section of the canvas, where the paint has been worked into a dense thicket of marks, forming the shrubbery and flowerbed. The paint application is far from delicate, it’s robust, almost crude, and yet, within it, Gauguin captures the riotous vitality of the tropics. The colours and textures seem to grow organically, one mark leading to another. I am always interested in how artists like Gauguin relate to their predecessors, and here I think of Van Gogh, also working with thick paint to create a sense of both immediacy and raw emotion. But where Van Gogh seems to be striving, Gauguin feels more at ease, surrendering to the ambiguity and playfulness that great art offers.