Landscape from Pont-Aven, Brittany

Landscape from Pont-Aven, Brittany (1888) at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen is a characteristic example of Gauguin's mature Synthetist treatment of the Pont-Aven countryside. He had been returning to the same village in Finistère since 1886, and by 1888 his relationship with the landscape was deeply informed by the formal development he was pursuing alongside Émile Bernard. The Pont-Aven countryside — with its rolling fields, stone walls, gorse-covered moors, and ancient standing stones — gave him a landscape that combined the specifically regional (the Catholic Breton culture, the distinctive vegetation, the slate-roofed farmhouses) with something that his imagination could generalize into the universal. The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek's strong collection of Breton Gauguins reflects the Scandinavian engagement with French modernism that his Danish connections encouraged, and the presence of this canvas alongside others from the same period allows the full development of his Pont-Aven style to be traced.

The landscape is treated with developing Synthetist boldness — the fields and hedgerows rendered in flat colour zones bounded by firmer contours than his early Impressionist work. The palette is rich and saturated, the greens particularly vivid. The composition is direct and unhesitating, demonstrating the confidence Gauguin had achieved in Pont-Aven during the summer of 1888.