L'Ile de Kerellec (Ouessant)

L'Ile de Kerellec (Ouessant) by Henry Moret from 1901, held in the Museum of Fine Arts of Reims, depicts the island of Ouessant (Ushant) off the westernmost tip of Brittany — one of the most remote and atmospherically dramatic locations in France. Moret, one of Gauguin's closest followers at Pont-Aven and a devoted painter of the Breton coast, repeatedly visited Ouessant to paint its rocky shores, fierce Atlantic light, and the distinctive landscape of its treeless moorland. Kerellec was likely a specific point or inlet on the island. These Ouessant paintings by Moret are among the most powerful expressions of Post-Impressionist landscape painting applied to one of Europe's most elemental coastal environments.

Moret renders the Ouessant landscape with bold, broad strokes that convey the wind-swept, elemental quality of the Atlantic island. His color is intense — deep blues, viridian greens, ochre rock — applied with a directness that emphasizes the physical force of the coastal environment.