Apple Trees at l'Hermitage II

Gauguin's Apple Trees at l'Hermitage was painted at Pontoise around 1879–1881 during his most intensive period of collaboration with Pissarro. L'Hermitage was the specific hamlet near Pontoise where Pissarro lived and worked, and Gauguin painted its orchards, gardens, and lanes repeatedly under Pissarro's direct tutelage. The apple trees in bloom or bearing fruit were a favourite Pissarro subject, and Gauguin's version is close enough to his teacher's treatment to raise the question of deliberate emulation. The work represents the high-water mark of his Impressionist discipline before the formal dissatisfactions that would drive him toward Synthetism.

The apple tree canopy is built from the characteristic Pissarro-Impressionist broken-colour touch in varied greens and ochres. The spatial recession through the orchard is naturalistic. The palette and handling are closely aligned with Pissarro's Pontoise landscapes — a direct measure of the student-teacher relationship.