Landscape with Curtain of Trees

Landscape with Curtain of Trees dates to 1875, when Gauguin was still a stockbroker painting on weekends under the influence of his friend and mentor Camille Pissarro. Before his abandonment of European civilisation for Martinique and Polynesia, Gauguin produced a substantial body of conventional Impressionist landscapes of the French countryside, and this early work reflects his competent assimilation of plein-air technique without yet displaying the synthetist ambition of his mature work. The painting survives as evidence of the artistic life Gauguin chose to abandon.

Gauguin handles the tree curtain with Impressionist broken brushwork, differentiating foliage through colour variation and stroke direction. The composition follows a standard Barbizon template — trees screening a brighter distance — and the palette, while fresh, remains within the naturalistic range of his contemporaries.