Busagny Farm, Osny

Gauguin's painting of Busagny Farm at Osny dates from his period of close collaboration with Pissarro in the Pontoise-Osny area during the early 1880s. He spent extended periods working alongside Pissarro, absorbing his patient, systematic approach to painting the Norman and Île-de-France countryside. Busagny Farm was a specific subject Pissarro also painted, making this a direct instance of master-student comparison. Gauguin's version is already more assertive in handling than Pissarro's — the forms more solidly built, the colour less atmospheric — anticipating the direction he would take away from Impressionism after 1886.

The farm buildings are rendered with greater structural definition than typically Impressionist, the walls and roof planes clearly differentiated. The foliage is built in short strokes of varied green and ochre. The sky is relatively thin and unmodulated compared to the denser handling of the earth and buildings.