Brittany Landscape

Paul Gauguin

National Gallery of Art

A waterway flanked by low banks curves away from us in front of a band of rolling hills in this loosely painted horizontal landscape. The water is created with wide strokes of white, ice blue, or the muted jewel tones of the hills. The riverbank in the lower right corner is also painted with wide strokes but in peanut brown, soft green, and petal pink. Tree trunks along the far bank have ghostly canopies that blend into the hills, which are painted with vertical strokes of celestial blue, amber brown, pale green, and rose pink. In the top third of the composition, a few white clouds trundle across the vivid blue sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “P. Gauguin 88.”