Breton Girls Dancing, Pont-Aven

Painted in 1888 at Pont-Aven, this joyful scene of young Breton women dancing in a meadow is one of Gauguin's most celebratory works. He painted it during the summer of intense work at Pont-Aven when he and Émile Bernard were developing Synthetism together. The dancing figures, their wide skirts and white coiffes creating a graphic pattern, are rendered with a directness and energy that makes this among the most immediately appealing of his Breton canvases. Now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

The dancing figures are treated as graphic silhouettes — their swirling skirts creating strong circular forms across the picture plane. Bold flat colours and firm outlines define each figure with Synthetist clarity. The meadow is painted in broad, unhesitating green and yellow zones. The whole composition captures the rhythmic energy of dance through pattern and colour rather than anatomical movement study.