Lot 203 Dα

Born in Cherbourg in 1856, Henry Moret had his first artistic training in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Julian. In 1888 the young painter was drawn to Pont-Aven, where a number of painters gathered around Paul Gauguin had set out in search of Brittany's unspoilt landscape. He was one of the first artists to settle in Le Pouldu, which soon became an important centre of the Pont-Aven artists.
His encounter with Paul Gauguin powerfully shaped the artistic development of the young Moret during those years. Over the course of the 1890s, after Gauguin had left Pont-Aven, Moret arrived at the boldly colourful painting whose short and narrow brushstrokes now contained an unmistakably Impressionist aspect. It seems almost like a logical necessity that he then became connected with the successful gallerist Paul Durand-Ruel, who publicised Henry Moret's work from 1895 onwards - not just in Paris, but also in New York, where his painting met with enormous interest.
There is scarcely another painter who linked an Impressionist understanding of the landscape with the Synthetism of Paul Gauguin as successfully as Moret. Our large-format painting is a rare early document of his outstanding talent for capturing on canvas the essence of the pristine nature of Brittany's landscape. Not just Moret's handling of light, but also his depiction of weather effects, are striking and he knew how to use luminous colours to dramatically present them.