Geese in the Meadow

Gauguin's 'Geese in the Meadow' (1885) belongs to his Breton animal subjects — the domestic geese of the Pont-Aven countryside providing a subject that combined naturalistic observation with the decorative possibilities of multiple animal forms in a landscape setting. The goose as a subject had a long tradition in European painting, from Dutch still life and genre through Barbizon pastoral to the peasant-naturalist mode that Gauguin engaged at Pont-Aven. His treatment would bring his developing formal ambitions to a subject typically handled with pastoral conventionality.

Gauguin renders the geese in the meadow with his characteristic attention to the decorative possibilities of grouped animal forms — the white geese in the green meadow creating a natural color contrast that suited his emerging interest in bold, simplified color relationships. His handling shows the transitional quality of 1885: the Impressionist observation still present but already inflected by his growing preference for deliberate compositional organization.