The painting “Early Evening” was written by Gauguin during the artist’s move to the islands of Oceania. It, like many canvases of that period, reflects the way of life of the Tahitian village. In his work, Gauguin paid attention to the colors of the early evening of Polynesia. This is the most gracious time of the day, when colors cease to lighten under the rays of the sun and acquire a rich shade.
The image, like a motley handkerchief, is covered with “patches” of yellow grass and red sand. In the center of the picture are the villagers. Peace is broken by passers-by scurrying back and forth. They are dressed in long hoodies and funny straw hats, reminiscent of the Faceless heroes of Japanese mythology – do not cast shadows and remain silent.
Paul Gauguin transferred in work the identity of the old settlement through the bamboo architecture of the houses and the arrangement of the village. Here, the houses are located far enough from each other. There is a lot of space and there is no household farm, to which we are accustomed. Vegetation is scant and concentrated in the center of the picture with bushy trees.
The artist added exotic notes to the foreground in the form of strange dry bushes. To revive the silence of the evening in the picture interspersed here and there by animals. And the palette is accented on warm colors. To enhance the contrast of hot grass and sand, Gauguin used blue in the costumes of the islanders. For the balance of cold spots, the painter left the edge of the blue sky in the left corner. The canvas, or rather his narrative, seems holistic and eloquent enough.
A household picture with an admixture of recognizable Hoganian application of spots is simply sharply on the viewer with its brightness and depth. The author, as always, was not afraid of an abundance of pure colors. His letter is sweeping, bold, not fluid, with interruptions to an explicit hatching brush. In the depiction of individual small details, Gauguin applied his traditional method of outline contouring, it is forgivable for him, although he endows the painting with the effect of a children’s scarlet with a ready-made picture.
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