In the Waves (Dans les Vagues)

Painted at Le Pouldu on the Breton coast in 1889, this bold, simplified image shows a nude woman breasting the surf, her body reduced to flat, curving zones of blue, green, and coral. It belongs to the most radical phase of Gauguin’s Brittany years, when he threw off naturalistic modeling in favor of large areas of unbroken color and rhythmic arabesques. The waving bodies of the breakers and the swimmer coalesce into a single pattern, foreshadowing the flat, decorative style he would carry to Tahiti two years later.