“Gauguin painted this famous picture during his second stay in Tahiti. He liked to roam through the countryside and explore the mountains and forests of the interior. These out-of-the-way places swarmed with all sorts of wildlife and plants which enchanted him.
But this scene is not taken from real life; it is an imaginary, synthetic vision of a Tahitian landscape. The contorted branches of a native tree called bourao, a sort of hibiscus, along with lilies and imaginary flowers in the foreground make a decorative frame for the main motif. The sky and the horizon are locked out of this enclosed space.
A white horse, its coat tinged with the green of the vegetation, has given the painting its title. It is drinking, standing in the middle of a stream which flows vertically through the composition. The solitary animal probably has a symbolic meaning related to the Tahitians’ beliefs about the passage of the soul into another world. In Polynesia, white is associated with death and worship of the gods.”

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This painting at Musée d’Orsay

Paul Gauguin At Sunnyside

Paul Gauguin at Christie’s

Paul Gauguin at wikimedia

Paul Gauguin at MoMA

Paul Gauguin at Van Gogh Museum

Paul Gauguin at Kunsthaus Zürich

Paul Gauguin at Musée d’Orsay

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Dr. Richard Stemp 193

Paul Gauguin at wikiwand

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