Les cigales et les fourmis (The Grasshoppers and the Ants), from the Volpini Suite

Les cigales et les fourmis (The Grasshoppers and the Ants), from the Volpini Suite, is a pivotal work created by Paul Gauguin French, 1848-1903, in 1889. This piece, classified as a print, showcases Gauguin's experimental approach to graphic arts during his time in Pont-Aven, France. The medium used is a zincograph in black ink applied to distinctively bright chrome yellow wove paper. Zincography, a planographic printing method related to lithography, allowed Gauguin to achieve bold contrasts and broad, simplified shapes that anticipate his later Synthetist style.

Les cigales et les fourmis is one of eleven works that comprise the famed Volpini Suite, a collection of prints exhibited at the Café Volpini in 1889 alongside fellow avant-garde artists. This suite marked a critical moment in Gauguin’s career, establishing his visual language of simplified forms and powerful symbolic content. Though the imagery is highly abstracted, the title references the classical fable by La Fontaine, contrasting the industrious Ant with the carefree Grasshopper, a theme Gauguin likely used to reflect on his own financial struggles and artistic commitments. Gauguin uses the stark juxtaposition of the thick black lines against the luminous yellow paper to emphasize form and mood over realistic depiction, pushing the boundaries of French printmaking. The resulting work exemplifies the artist’s move toward Symbolism and is held in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, offering essential insight into Gauguin's development of primitivism within his graphic works.