1889
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
In the Waves (Dans les Vagues) is a 1889 unspecified by Paul Gauguin, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A woman dives head-first into choppy green waves, her body glowing orange against the sea. The sky is a flat band of yellow, and the water looks more like swirling paint than real ocean. Gauguin painted this in a small French village, not from life but from memory and imagination. The bright, clashing colors and bold outlines were meant to feel raw and emotional, not realistic. He wanted the scene to suggest something deeper—freedom, instinct, or breaking away from modern life. To see how other artists used color this way, look up Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903).
Painted at Pont-Aven in northwest France, this depiction of a nude figure throwing herself into the sea suggests a metaphor for a modern European woman forsaking civilization and abandoning herself to her natural, primitive instincts. The simplified lines and exaggerated colors, especially the contrasting green and orange, seem invented rather than observed from life. Exhibiting the painting at the Café Volpini in Paris in 1889, Gauguin established himself as a leader of the Symbolist movement in art.
Gauguin likely painted this work of art during his time in a small coastal village called Pont-Aven where he sought to immerse himself in nature and escape modern civilization.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (; French: ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, whose work has been primarily associated with the Post-Impressionist and Symbolist movements.
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