Porteuses de fruits à l'anse Turin, ou Bord de mer II

Paul Gauguin's 'Porteuses de fruits à l'anse Turin, ou Bord de mer II' (Fruit Carriers at Turin Cove, or Seashore II, 1887) is a Martinique subject from his Caribbean period — Gauguin visited Martinique in 1887, an experience that was crucial to his developing conception of the non-European world as a place of authentic, unmediated life uncontaminated by European civilization. The fruit carriers of Martinique — women of the local community engaged in the everyday labor of the market — gave him his first sustained encounter with the non-European female figure that would eventually lead him to Tahiti.

Gauguin renders the Martinican women with the vivid color and direct observation that the tropical light and the unfamiliar subject world provoked — his palette enriched by the Caribbean's intense colors and his formal approach energized by the visual difference of the non-European subjects. His handling of the figures against the sea and tropical vegetation creates the specific atmosphere of the Martinique coast. The composition shows his developing formal confidence with the outdoor figure-in-landscape subject.