Haystacks in Brittany

Painted in 1890 at Le Pouldu, this atmospheric view of haystacks in the Breton countryside shows Gauguin treating a subject Monet made famous with very different intentions. Where Monet used haystacks to capture the fleeting effects of light, Gauguin uses them as anchors for a simplified, emotionally resonant landscape of ancient rural life. The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. holds this canvas, which represents his mature Breton style — the haystacks becoming simplified golden forms in a landscape of deep colour planes.

The haystacks are rendered as warm golden-ochre conical masses that dominate the middle ground. The treatment is flatter and more emblematic than Monet's Impressionist approach — colour serves structural and symbolic rather than observational purposes. The sky above is handled simply, the overall composition reduced to elemental forms: earth, stacks, sky.