The Flageolet Player on the Cliff

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Gallery label:
In 1889 Gauguin worked in the village of Le Pouldu. There he created this dizzying panorama, recording the site's craggy cliffs and the waves breaking on the beach. At right are a girl with her scythe and a boy playing a flageolet, or flute - symbols of the artist's attachment to the harmonies of Breton life. Yet Gauguin also altered the view to suit his imagination, boldly pairing near and far, steep and flat to create a complex surface pattern. And where has he placed the viewer-hovering perilously over the abyss?


Indianapolis Museum of Art
Samuel Josefowitz Collection of the School of Pont-Aven, through the generosity of Lilly Endowment Inc., the Josefowitz Family, Mr. and Mrs. James M. Cornelius, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard J. Betley, Lori and Dan Efroymson, and other Friends of the Museum