Between 1886 and 1891 Gauguin spent extended periods of time in the rural community of Pont‑Aven, Brittany, in northwestern France. Although an established international artists’ colony and popular tourist destination, Pont-Aven—with its distinctive local customs and garments—appealed to Gauguin and others for its supposed difference from urban, industrial Paris. In constructed scenes of everyday life, like this one, Gauguin exploited mythic notions of the Breton region being remote and archaic, and its inhabitants being deeply religious, by imbuing his paintings with spiritual, if ambiguous, significance. Here, two Breton peasants sit in the shade of an attenuated tree within a radiant landscape. One figure seems at first to be praying, but in fact she’s eating—holding a piece of fruit, perhaps, in her left hand and a knife in her right. The other is abruptly cropped by the canvas’ margin, recalling compositional devices common in Japanese prints and embraced by Edgar Degas [26.790]. The thick outlines and flat passages of heightened color demonstrate Gauguin’s continued departure from Impressionism and increasing expressive simplification.

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