Schooner and Three-Master

Paul Gauguin's 'Schooner and Three-Master' (1886) is a marine subject from his Brittany period — his engagement with the sailing vessels of the Breton coast placing him within the French marine painting tradition alongside his more distinctive figure and landscape subjects. The specific vessels named in the title — the two-masted schooner and the larger three-master — were the working sail of the Breton and Breton-adjacent maritime world, and Gauguin's depiction of these vessels showed his attention to the specific material reality of the maritime world he was exploring.

Gauguin renders the sailing vessels with the directness and technical interest that characterized his marine subjects — the specific rigging, hull forms, and relative scale of the two vessels creating the composition's formal interest. His handling of the sea and sky that contextualizes the vessels reflects his developing approach to the natural elements. The vessels in the composition create the organizing structure around which the marine atmosphere is built.