Village in Martinique (Femmes et Chevre dans le village)

Painted in 1887 during Gauguin's brief, transformative stay in Martinique, this village scene is one of the key works of his Caribbean sojourn. Martinique was Gauguin's first sustained experience of tropical colonial life, and the paintings he made there show the beginning of the vivid colour and the interest in non-European figures that would culminate in his Tahitian work. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem holds this canvas as documentation of the crucial Martinique period that prefigured his later Pacific journeys.

The tropical village is rendered with a brighter, more vivid palette than Gauguin's European work — the Caribbean light intensifying his colour responses. Figures and buildings are observed directly, without yet the full Synthetist simplification of his later Breton work. The handling is transitional: Impressionist in its atmospheric responsiveness but already moving toward bolder, less modulated colour areas.