The Woodcutter

The Woodcutter, painted in 1891 during Gauguin's first Tahitian period, depicts a male figure engaged in the physical labor of cutting wood — a subject connecting his Polynesian work to the peasant labor subjects of his Brittany period. Gauguin was fascinated by images of human beings engaged in elemental physical work within a natural landscape; his admiration for Millet's peasants translated in Tahiti into interest in Polynesian laborers. The male figure in action — swinging an axe, splitting wood — gave him the opportunity to study the human body in dynamic posture and to integrate physical labor into his evolving image of Polynesian life as closer to nature than European civilization.

Oil on canvas with the Synthetist handling of a figure in landscape — the woodcutter's body defined by firm outlines, the surrounding trees and ground rendered in flat color areas that frame the figure rather than describing naturalistic spatial depth. The action pose required Gauguin to simplify body movement into bold, legible form.