Study for The Buckwheat Harvesters

Emile Bernard was 20 years old when he made this sketchlike painting whose essential Synthetism epitomises the Pont-Aven aesthetic. Bernard worked alongside Gauguin from his arrival in Pont-Aven in August 1888 until his departure in November. This was a period of intense artistic activity, and he regularly sent his parents parcels of small nature studies on canvas which were easily shippable by train. These unsigned paintings were simple sketches intended to serve as the basis for studio canvases. This study for the right-hand side of the final version of Le Ble noir shows two women in traditional Pont-Aven costume standing sheaves of buckwheat upright to dry. At the end of summer, before harvest time, buckwheat stems turned bright red, which the painter has expressed by placing streaks of red throughout the composition