Still Life with Profile of Laval

Paul Gauguin

Oil on canvas

Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields

This richly textured still life pairs a tabletop arrangement of fruit and a carved ceramic vessel with the ghostly silhouette of fellow painter Charles Laval peering in from the right edge, blurring the line between genre and portraiture. Gauguin's thick, confident brushwork and earthy, muted palette—punctuated by bursts of red and green in the apples—reveal his early move away from Impressionism toward a bolder, more symbolic style. Painted in Pont-Aven, France, the work captures the artistic camaraderie of the circle of painters Gauguin gathered around him, hinting at the radical direction his art would soon take in Tahiti. It's a compelling conversation piece that blends intimacy, experimentation, and art-historical significance for any wall.