Escape

Escape (1902) at the Trade Fair Palace (Veletržní palác) in Prague belongs to Gauguin's final productive year on the Marquesas, when his physical condition was seriously compromised but his commitment to painting remained absolute. The theme of escape — flight from imprisonment or constraint — had personal resonance for someone who had been in sustained conflict with the French colonial authorities on Hiva Oa over his encouragement of indigenous resistance to colonial law and his own legal difficulties. He was facing imprisonment himself at one point; the escape motif resonated with his lived situation. The Prague National Gallery's holding of this late canvas is one of the outcomes of Central European collecting patterns that diverged from Western European ones: the Trade Fair Palace's large collection of Post-Impressionist work was assembled partly through channels that brought major works to Prague that might otherwise have remained in Western markets.

Late Gauguin brushwork is characterised by thinly applied paint across rough canvas, with forms built from broad colour zones and minimal detail. The palette tends toward warm earth tones punctuated by intense blues and greens in foliage, with figures rendered as simplified, monumental silhouettes.