Pont-Aven School is a term occupied by works of art iconographically due to Pont-Aven and its surroundings. Originally the term was focusing works of the artists' colony emerging there since the 1850s, and some decades later the work of the group of painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

s gathering around the artist Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...

 in the early 1890s. Their work is characterised by the bold use of pure colour and Symbolist choice of subject matter.

Background

Pont-Aven

Pont-Aven

Pont-Aven is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Pont-Aven are called in French Pontavenistes.-History:...

 is a commune

Communes of France

The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 of the Finistère

Finistère

Finistère is a département of France, in the extreme west of Brittany.-History:The name Finistère derives from the Latin Finis Terræ, meaning end of the earth, and may be compared with Land's End on the opposite side of the English Channel...

 département, in Brittany

Brittany

Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, some distance inland from where the River Aven meets the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

. From the 1850s painters began to frequent Pont-Aven, wanting to spend their summers away from the city, on a low budget in a picturesque place not yet spoilt by tourism. Gauguin first worked in Pont-Aven in 1886. When he returned in 1888, the situation had changed: Pont-Aven was already crowded, and Gauguin looked for an alternative place to work which he found, in 1889, in Le Pouldu (today part of the community of Clohars-Carnoët

Clohars-Carnoët

Clohars-Carnoët is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France.-Population:Inhabitants of Clohars-Carnoët are called in French Cloharsiens.-References:** ;-External links:*...

), some miles off to the East at the mouth of the river Laïta

Laïta

The Laïta is a river in western France . It is formed at the confluence of the rivers Ellé and Isole, in Quimperlé. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Guidel....

, traditionally the border of the Morbihan

Morbihan

Morbihan is a department in Brittany, situated in the northwest of France. It is named after the Morbihan , the enclosed sea that is the principal feature of the coastline.-History:...

 département. There, Gauguin, accompanied by Meijer de Haan

Meijer de Haan

Meijer de Haan was a Dutch painter.-Biography:He was born into a successful Jewish family of biscuit manufacturers, close to the study of religion, music and art. He had already had some success in the Netherlands as a painter of Jewish genre works...

, Filiger and for a while by Sérusier, spent the winter of 1889/1890 and several months afterwards.

Artists working in Pont-Aven (or Le Pouldu)

• Paul Gauguin
  Paul Gauguin
  Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
  
   1886, 1888, 1889–1890 and 1894
• Emile Bernard
  Émile Bernard
  Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
  
   1888 and 1891–1893
• Charles Laval
  Charles Laval
  Charles Laval was a French painter born March 17, 1862 in Paris and who died April 27, 1894. He is associated with the Synthetic movement and Pont-Aven School, and he was a contemporary and friend of Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. Gauguin created a portrait of him in 1886 looking at one of...
  
   1888
• Emile Schuffenecker
  Émile Schuffenecker
  Émile Schuffenecker was a French Post-Impressionist artist, painter, art teacher and art collector. A friend of Paul Gauguin and Odilon Redon, and one of the first collectors of works by Vincent van Gogh, Schuffenecker was instrumental in establishing the Volpini exhibition, in 1889...
  
  
• Meijer de Haan
  Meijer de Haan
  Meijer de Haan was a Dutch painter.-Biography:He was born into a successful Jewish family of biscuit manufacturers, close to the study of religion, music and art. He had already had some success in the Netherlands as a painter of Jewish genre works...
  
  
• Władysław Ślewiński
• Paul Sérusier
  Paul Sérusier
  Paul Sérusier was a French painter who was a pioneer of abstract art and an inspiration for the avant-garde Nabi movement, Synthetism and Cloisonnism.- Education :...
  
   1888, 1889 (and 1889, 1890)
• Armand Séguin
• Charles Filiger
• Jan Verkade
  Jan Verkade
  Johannes Sixtus Gerhardus Verkade was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. In the early 1890s, frequented the circles of Paul Gauguin and of Les Nabis...
  
  
• Mogens Ballin
• Henry Moret
• Ernest Ponthier de Chamaillard
• Gustave Loiseau
• Emile Jourdan
• Jens Ferdinand Willumsen
  Jens Ferdinand Willumsen
  Jens Ferdinand Willumsen was a Danish artist who was associated with the movements of Symbolism and Expressionism. Although he was Danish, Willumsen lived almost half of his life in France...
  
  
• Roderic O'Conor
  Roderic O'Conor
  Roderic O'Conor was an Irish painter.Born in Milltown, Castleplunket, Co. Roscommon, Ireland, O'Conor studied at Ampleforth College, then at Dublin and Antwerp before moving to Paris where he was deeply influenced by the Impressionists.O'Conor attended the Metropolitan School and Royal Hibernian...
  
  
• Maurice Denis
  Maurice Denis
  Maurice Denis was a French painter and writer, and a member of the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art.-Childhood and education:...
  
  
• Robert Polhill Bevan 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893 and 1894
• Franck C. Penfold circa 1880
• Cuno Amiet
  Cuno Amiet
  Cuno Amiet was a Swiss painter, illustrator, graphic artist and sculptor. As the first Swiss painter to give precedence to colour in composition, he was a pioneer of modern art in Switzerland.-Biography:...