“Washerwomen in Arles was painted during Gauguin’s sojourn in the French town of Arles, where he had gone to work in the last quarter of 1888, summoned by Van Gogh, who was trying to assemble an artistic group… Outstanding features of this painting are the abstraction of its backgrounds, the impression of movement and photographic look, which led the painter to cut off the figure of the goat, which seems to be encroaching onto the scene. The distortion of the figures’shapes, along with their hieratic appearance, comes from the influence of the rough stone or wood statuary in Breton churches. The flat shapes with dark outlines and the zones of pure colour show his attempts to achieve a personal synthesis in which the complexity of the idea is expressed through the simplification of forms. This “Synthetism”, a term coined by the artist himself, was characterised by the non-mimetic depiction of nature, the rejection of perspective through the abandonment of the third dimension, which was inspired by Japanese prints, and the separation of colour zones -large and flat, with strong contrasts which intensify the chromatic expressiveness- with a dark line. Émile Bernard dreamt up this system of colour compartmentalisation which he called Cloisonnism, whose origins lay in the stained-glass windows of mediaeval churches and enamels.”
Bilbao Fine Arts Museum
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Paul Gauguin at Van Gogh Museum
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Thanks for Visiting 🌻
~Sunnyside
At Sunnyside - Where Truth and Beauty Meet 
Good day to you and happy new week. Thank you for the beautiful way to begin it!
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My pleasure, always, Sheila. Have a wonderful evening! 😊
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I love Gaugan’s earlier work
Some people only know him for his Tihitian island paintings. Good for him for moving there. But he was always a talented artist
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I am enjoying learning more about his early paintings. Thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughts, Andrea. 😊
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Thanks for sharing always great paintings!
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I am happy you enjoy this – thanks so much for visiting and sharing your thoughts, Luisella. 😊
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I really like the colours in this one, the flaming orange with the blues. Perhaps Van Gogh had influenced him a bit in this picture.
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I have enjoyed learning about both – especially how Japanese art influence each. And I agree – those colors!! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Andy.
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I can see influences of Van Gogh here. Perhaps the artists were in Arles at the same time.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Viviienne. I would love to learn more about that! 😊
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