Farm in Brittany II

Gauguin's 'Farm in Brittany II' (1886) is one of his several farm subjects from his first Pont-Aven stay — the Breton farmstead as a subject that combined architectural elements (the farm buildings), animal subjects (cattle, pigs, geese), and landscape into a unified rural scene. The Breton farm represented the authentic rural life Gauguin had come to Brittany to find, and his multiple versions of the farm subject from this period reflect his systematic investigation of how to paint this environment with the formal ambition that was already distinguishing his work from Impressionist convention.

Gauguin renders the farm complex with his developing compositional clarity — the farm buildings and surrounding landscape organized with more deliberate intention than Impressionist spontaneity would require. His palette shows the warm, saturated tones of his pre-Synthetist Breton work. The farm's specific elements — thatched roofs, stone walls, the characteristic plants of the Breton yard — are observed with direct naturalistic attention.