How did Paul Gauguin’s paintings from Martinique differ from his earlier Impressionist work?

Paul Gauguin’s paintings from his time in Martinique in 1887 marked a significant departure from his earlier Impressionist style. While his earlier work was characterized by the direct observation and techniques associated with Impressionism, his Martinique paintings, such as Tropical Vegetation and By the Sea, demonstrated a shift toward working with blocks of color arranged in large, unmodulated planes.1

This transition represented an early move away from the Impressionist goal of replicating an actual scene through light and brushstroke. Instead, Gauguin began to favor a more simplified approach to form and color, which would later evolve into his signature style known as Synthetism. By abandoning the traditional focus on naturalistic representation, he began to explore how pictorial elements could be used to convey ideas or emotions, a development that eventually led him to be recognized as a leader of the Symbolist movement in art.12