Provenance
Purchased 1890 by Octave Maus [1856-1919], Brussels; by inheritance to his wife Madeleine Maus, Brussels, until c. 1945; by inheritance to Paul Fierens [1895-1957], Brussels, by 1947;[1] his widow; sold 1957 to (Wildenstein & Co., London, New York and Paris);[2] sold 1957 to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA; gift 1983 to NGA.
[1] Information provided by Bertrand Maus de Rolley in email correspondence with Belinda Thomson, August 2012, in NGA curatorial files. Lent by Fierens to exhibitions in Brussels in 1947 and Basel and Paris in 1949.
[2]See letter dated 14 December 1998 from Joseph Baillio of Wildenstein's.
Accession Number
1983.1.20
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 73.3 x 92.4 cm (28 7/8 x 36 3/8 in.) | framed: 103.2 x 122.9 x 10.4 cm (40 5/8 x 48 3/8 x 4 1/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Tags
Painting Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Oil Painting Canvas French
Background & Context
Background Story
Landscape at Le Pouldu from 1890 was painted during Gauguin's stay at the coastal village of Le Pouldu in Brittany, where he had moved after his second stay at Pont-Aven. The Le Pouldu period was one of the most productive of Gauguin's career, producing works that pushed the Synthetist style further toward the bold color and simplified forms that would characterize his Tahitian paintings. The landscape at Le Pouldu—with its dramatic coastline, its Breton peasants, and its isolation from Parisian art politics—provided the ideal setting for Gauguin's experiments in non-naturalistic color and composition.
Cultural Impact
Gauguin's Le Pouldu landscapes represent the final stage of his Breton period, when the Synthetist style had reached its most radical expression before his departure for Tahiti. Landscape at Le Pouldu shows Gauguin's color and composition at their most liberated: the Breton landscape is rendered in colors that have less and less relationship to natural appearance, and the composition is organized by flat planes of color that anticipate the style of his Tahitian paintings.
Why It Matters
Landscape at Le Pouldu is Gauguin on the edge of Tahiti: the Breton landscape rendered in colors that have loosened their relationship to natural appearance, the composition organized by flat planes that anticipate the style he would bring to the South Pacific. The 1890 date makes this the last stage of Breton Synthetism before Tahiti transformed everything.
![Tahitian Shore [verso]](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/a8f38e3e-3205-444d-b91a-b3d23016e11b/full/400,/0/default.jpg)
![Mahana Atua (Day of the Gods) [recto]](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/712af1f5-ee6c-422b-adae-e286bf21f810/full/400,/0/default.jpg)
![Two Title Pages for "Le Sourire" (Les deux titres du Sourire) [verso]](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/db26d4a0-2063-4ee1-832a-3e62881a457e/full/400,/0/default.jpg)
