Le Calvarie Breton

Le Calvarie Breton is a powerful woodcut created by Paul Gauguin between 1898 and 1899. This unique print, executed on delicate japan tissue, showcases the artist’s mature commitment to the graphic arts. Gauguin embraced the inherent roughness of the woodcut medium, often utilizing cheap tools to achieve intentional imperfections. He appreciated the stark, primal quality and intense contrast that wood provided, allowing him to create expressive, monumental compositions that rejected the delicate finesse of conventional etching.

Though executed during Gauguin’s later residency in the South Pacific, the print’s subject returns conceptually to Brittany, a key location for the artist’s Symbolist explorations years earlier. The composition evokes a timeless, almost ritualistic scene, centering on a group of Women gathered near a processional cross or calvary, suggesting themes of rural piety and sacrifice. The heavy, dark forms of several Cows are integrated into the lower portion of the image, anchoring the scene firmly in the context of rustic, agricultural life. Gauguin utilized the visible texture of the wood grain to add textural richness, blending the figures and the landscape into a unified, mythic image.

This impression of Le Calvarie Breton is held in the renowned collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As with many important late-career Gauguin prints, this work demonstrates the visual power achievable through simplified forms and dark contours, hallmarks of his distinct Post-Impressionist style. Because of the enduring importance of this work, later impressions are sometimes available through public domain sources, securing its continued legacy among graphic masterworks and ensuring broad accessibility to Gauguin's essential output.