Brief Report
For this motif of a Breton boy, painted in 1889, Paul Gauguin chose a canvas of the standard F30 format, measuring 92,0 x 73,0 cm. In this particular year he used this size for 26 out of a total of 70 pictures he painted [see Wildenstein 1964]. The canvas is thick, with an irregular weave, and he probably primed it himself. This observation corresponds with what we know of Gauguin's working methods [Christensen 1993]. The thin, dilute white ground was evidently applied direct to the unsized canvas. Gauguin then sketched the main forms in black charcoal (fig. 8). Using a brush and blue paint, he then went on to fix and correct the position of all the forms he actually wanted to paint. This working method of Gauguin's has also already been documented in print [Jirat-Wasiutynski/Newton 2000, p. 71]. Infra-red reflectogram and microscopic inspection make it clear that some of these early lines deviate from the painting we now see (figs 5, 9). At the same time, it is not clear what was originally planned. It is uncertain for example what the outlines in the top lefthand corner of the picture are meant to represent: possibly the rejected depiction of an animal, a motif that Gauguin often incorporated into his paintings at this time. We can see very great similarities for example with the illustration of a dog, such as we see in the painting Women on the Seashore (Motherhood), which however only dates from 1899, i.e. ten years later [Wildenstein 1964, no. 581]. In the case of the two vertical lines in the top right and centre of the picture, too, it is uncertain whether Gauguin may perhaps have planned to include tree-trunks, as for example in the picture The Blue Trees, 1888, [Wildenstein 1964, no. 311]. Possibly he even intended a totally different composition at first, which he rejected during the painting process, or else he used for the painting of the boy a canvas which had already been partly painted on. Gauguin's use of the dual method of a drawn sketch followed by a coloured outline is reflected particularly well in the unfinished study of The Tahitians (1891), now in the Tate collection in London (fig. 14). Here too we see a careful charcoal drawing, followed in a second phase by an outline in blue brushstrokes, before the areas were finally filled out with paint. For the further painterly execution of the Nude Breton Boy, Gauguin evidently used very thin paints with a low oil-content, applied in part with very fine brushes in numerous layers. However he attached no importance to clear brushwork, preferring to integrate the structure of the canvas (fig. 10). Gauguin allowed himself pentimenti at this stage too, for example in the shape of the hip or the right arm (figs 6, 12). The picture was lined at a later date, increasing its size by about 1 cm all round. On the basis of historical illustrations, dimensions recorded in catalogues and inscriptions verso, we can probably date this lining measure, in the course of which the surface structure underwent serious flattening, to between 1913 and 1928 (fig. 13).

Paul Gauguin
Breton Boy, 1889, oil on canvas, 93.0 x 74.2 cm, WRM 3114

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, lined


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

UV fluorescence


Fig. 05

IR reflectogram shows lines, in some cases unexplained, and clearly deviating from the visible painting, e.g. in the top left-hand corner, or the verticals in the right-hand half of the picture


Fig. 06

X-ray


Fig. 07

Details, signature under incident light (top) and under UV


Fig. 08

Charcoal particles from the first underdrawing are visible (arrows), microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 09

Blue brush-drawing; here the outline was subsequently revised in green, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 10

Detail, flesh-tones painterly structure is particulary dicernible unter the microscope, microscopic photograph (bottom) (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 11

Detail of the hand unter raking light, thin paint application


Fig. 12

Detail, revision of the contour of the right arm


Fig. 13

Change in size by someone other than the artist: the original dimensions of the picture (white frame) were changed on all sides in the course of a lining and re-stretching procedure at an early date, as an historic 1913 b/w photograph of the picture, shows when compared to the dimensions of the picture today. The adjacent details of the turnover edge show the original tacking holes along the present edge of the picture (right, arrows) and the use of a primed lining canvas (far right)


Fig. 14

Paul Gauguin, The Tahitians, c. 1891, oil over chalk/charcoal on paper, 85.4 cm x 101.9 cm, Tate, London