Composition with Figures and a Horse

Paul Gauguin's 'Composition with Figures and a Horse' (1902) is a late Marquesas work that continued his engagement with the Polynesian figure subjects that had occupied him since his arrival in the Pacific. By 1902 in the Marquesas Islands, his formal vocabulary was fully mature and his subject world entirely his own — the figures, animals, and landscape of the Pacific integrated within a visual language that had moved far from European conventions. The horse as a subject in the Polynesian context connected European painting tradition to the Pacific world he depicted.

Gauguin renders the figures and horse with his fully developed late synthesis — the figures and animal simplified through his bold outline and flat color vocabulary, the composition organized with the confident directness of his most developed work. His palette maintains the warm golds and rich greens and blues of his Polynesian period. The integration of the human figures with the horse within the tropical setting creates the compositional unity of his mature approach.