Paul Gauguin, after a harsh winter in…

Paul Gauguin, after a harsh winter in Pont-Aven, sails to the French Caribbean island of Martinique with the painter Charles Laval in April 1887, intending to “live like a savage.”

His works painted on Martinique, such as Tropical Vegetation (1887, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh) and By the Sea (1887, private collection, Paris), reveal his increasing departure from Impressionist technique during this period, as he is now working with blocks of color in large, unmodulated planes.