1886 -1894 · Brittany, partitionism, synthetism and birth of the Nabis

In Pont-Aven, Gauguin, Bernard, Sérusier and their companions free the landscape from imitation: flat areas of color, dark contours and memory of the motif open the way to symbolism and the Nabis.

The Pont-Aven School designates a posteriori artists of various nationalities who came to work in the Breton town at the end of the 19th century. The arrival of Paul Gauguin in 1886, then his exchanges with Émile Bernard in 1888, favored the development of synthetism: the painter no longer faithfully copied nature, but reformulated its memory through flat areas of pure color, marked contours and simplified composition. Under the direction of Gauguin at Bois d'Amour, Paul Sérusier painted the small panel which would become Le Talisman and transmitted this experience to his Nabis friends. Pont-Aven and Le Pouldu thus became places of collective work where Breton landscape, rural life, religion and symbolic imagination responds to each other. The "School of Pont-Aven and Synthetism" selection notably compares Breton Landscape with Livestock and Les Laveuses à la Laïta. His reading favors atmosphere.

In Pont-Aven, the landscape ceases to be a view to be reproduced: it becomes a sensation reconstructed by color, line and memory.