Portrait of a Pont-Aven Woman (Marie Louarn?)

Paul Gauguin's 'Portrait of a Pont-Aven Woman (Marie Louarn?)' (1888) is from his crucial Pont-Aven period — the specific woman identified with a question mark in the title reflects the uncertainty of identification of the model who became his subject. Marie Louarn, if she was the sitter, was a woman of the Pont-Aven community, and Gauguin's engagement with the specific faces of the Breton women he encountered was part of his broader project of understanding and depicting the pre-modern world he found in Brittany. His portraits of individual Breton women gave specific identity to the community he was studying.

Gauguin renders the Breton woman's portrait with his developing Synthetist approach — the face depicted with bold simplification of form and a color intensity that went beyond naturalistic portraiture toward an expressive engagement with the specific character of the Breton physiognomy. His treatment combines direct psychological observation with the formal language of his developing style, the bold handling of the face creating both a specific individual portrait and a broader evocation of Breton female character.