Landscape of Brittany

Brittany, the region of northwestern France bound by the English Channel and the Atlantic Ocean, has preserved a culture distinct from that of France and has fostered a simple, artless lifestyle. Gauguin visited Pont-Aven in Brittany in 1886, and lived in that area off and on until 1890. He used the undulating landscapes and artless genre scenes of the region in his pursuit of distinctive individualistic compositions. This work from the first half of his stay in Brittany represents a transitional stage from the Impressionist style to his own more planar forms.