Seine River Seen From Iéna Bridge

Seine River Seen from Iéna Bridge (1875) at the Musée d'Orsay is among the earliest known paintings by Gauguin, made when he was twenty-seven years old, still employed at the Bertin brokerage house, and painting on weekends and holidays under the informal guidance of his guardian Gustave Arosa. The view from the Iéna Bridge looking downriver toward the Seine's gentle bend was a fashionable subject in the early 1870s Impressionist circle — the area between the Pont de l'Iéna and the western suburbs was being developed with the parks and institutions associated with the Third Republic's civic ambitions — and Gauguin's choice of it reflects his immersion in Impressionist subject matter through Arosa's collection and his own developing museum education. The Orsay's possession of this early canvas alongside so many works by the mature Impressionists who inspired it gives it an unusual documentary importance: the beginning of an artistic career that would end in the Pacific is preserved within yards of the works that started it.

The loose, comma-shaped strokes across the river surface reflect early Impressionist influence, building light through chromatic juxtaposition. The grey-blue palette is handled with surprising restraint, the bridges receding through atmospheric perspective rather than linear construction.