Brief Report
The Landscape near Rouen is a second 1884 painting by Paul Gauguin in the collection of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud [Wildenstein 1964, cat. no. 124, Wildenstein 2001, cat. no. 117]. As with Manuring the Fields [cf WRM Dep. FC 663] this canvas also corresponds to the standard Figure 20 (73.0 x 60.0 cm) size and attests to the fact that this standard size was among Gauguin’s favourite formats, at least during the period of his sojourn in Rouen from the beginning of 1884 until the late autumn of that year. Of the not quite fifty pictures he painted there, twelve are this size. According to the stamp verso, the stretched canvas was acquired from the paint dealer Latouche (Abb. 4). Gauguin maintained close relations with this traditional purveyor of artists’ supplies over many years. This is evidenced not only by the picture The Seine at the Pont de Grenelle, which dates from nine years earlier and is also in the collection of the Wallraf [cf. WRM Dep. FC 744], but also by published findings and studies of sources [Jirat-Wasiutynski/ Newton 2000, p. 205]. A very fine canvas pre-primed in off-white was also chosen by Gauguin for this picture. Examination under raking light, transmitted light and X-ray points to the fact that the artist had evidently already used this canvas, at least in part, for another picture, and reused it for the painting visible today (figs 3, 4, 6, 10, 13). The rejected composition cannot be identified any more closely, but as far as can be determined by the evaluation of imaging techniques, including stereo-microscopic inspection, its motif and coloration are totally different from those of the visible picture. A shape in the bottom right-hand corner, reminiscent of a haystack, suggests that the first picture on the canvas was inverted with respect to the one we see (fig. 6). Traces of a preliminary sketch, presumably in charcoal, can be discerned under the microscope, although it cannot be determined with certainty whether this belongs to the first or second painting (fig. 9). A finding of this kind very largely accords with observations made on the three other Gauguins in the Wallraf collection dating from a period extending across 13 years. Gauguin used viscous paint both for the first picture and for the visible one. As a result of repeated applications of paint with a low binder content with drying times of undetermined duration, the surface texture is highly structured and the brushwork almost palpable. The multiple overlayering of individual paint applications with underlying brushstrokes in another colour to create structure has been described occasionally in English as ‘corrugated textures’ [Kirsh/ Levinson 2000, p. 138f.]. Microscopic inspection reveals, in the foreground in a few places along the road, round, transparent and often yellowish particles embedded in the paint-layer, which may have something to do with processes of chemical change (fig. 14). Similarities with published findings suggest that this phenomenon is due to the influence of lead soaps [see Noble/Boon/Wadum 2002].

Paul Gauguin
Landscape near Rouen, 1884, oil on canvas, 74.0 x 60.0 cm, WRM Dep. FC 699

Paul Gauguin

born on 7 June 1848 in Paris,
died on 8 May 1903 in Atuona on the Marquesas Islands

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso with the stamp of the dealer Latouche (cf. fig. 7), above it traces of a stamp applied in error (arrow)


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

Transmitted light shows, independently of the visible painting, denser areas in the sky and foreground which
suggest multiple paintlayers or else a previous painting (arrows)


Fig. 05

UV fluorescence


Fig. 06

The X-ray shows, particularly in the bottom right-hand
corner, a structure of an underlying, overpainted compositional lay-in unrelated to the visible picture; this structure recalls an inverted haystack


Fig. 07

Detail, dealer’s stamp of the Latouche company, under slightly raking light


Fig. 08

Detail, signature applied to the dry underlying
paint-layer


Fig. 09

Small quantities of charcoal particles from an underdrawing
(arrows), microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 10

Detail, raking light reveals underlying structures of an
overpainted motif (cf. fig. 6)


Fig. 11

Multiple paint applications applied wet-in-wet which only
rake the elevations of the structure; the brushwork
is clearly discernible in each case, while the coloration is different; this texture has been termed “corrugated”,
microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 12

Wet-in-wet paint applications, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 13

Region of the track in the foreground, sequence of various colorations which derive from the canvas’s having been
used twice: dark blue, ochre, orange-red, greyblue
(from bottom to top), microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 14

Transparent, round, solid particles, often appearing
slightly yellowish, which have formed in the surface of the paintlayer or else have migrated thither (arrows),
microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)