Haystacks in Brittany

Haystacks in Brittany (1890) at the National Gallery of Art invites comparison with Monet's famous Haystacks series, begun the same year, in which the Norman agricultural stacks were the vehicle for an extended investigation of atmospheric light through the seasons and times of day. Gauguin's approach was fundamentally different: where Monet pursued the dissolution of solid form in atmospheric light, Gauguin used the same stacks as formal anchors in a simplified, symbolic landscape. The Breton haystacks — slightly different in shape from the Norman varieties Monet painted near Giverny — appear in Gauguin's canvas as warm golden masses in a deep-colored landscape that carries no interest in atmospheric conditions. The comparison makes explicit the key theoretical opposition between Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: Impressionism's interest in the transient effects of light versus Post-Impressionism's interest in permanent structure and symbolic resonance. The National Gallery of Art's possession of this canvas alongside Monet's own work elsewhere in the collection creates one of the most direct juxtapositions available in American museums.

The haystacks are rendered as warm golden-ochre conical masses that dominate the middle ground. The treatment is flatter and more emblematic than Monet's Impressionist approach — colour serves structural and symbolic rather than observational purposes. The sky above is handled simply, the overall composition reduced to elemental forms: earth, stacks, sky.