Gauguin (39 years-old) and the young Laval (26) are at the time trying to make ends meet and to find their identity in the vibrant and artsy movement of the time. Looking for new ideas, techniques and subjects, they take a trip to Panama, and then arrive to the French Caribbean and the sunny island of Martinique, where they both explore the deep greens of the vegetation, but also the exoticism of the people and occupations. The black women picking and collecting fruit and living their everyday lives will inspire both the painters in different ways.

Gauguin sees there some sort of a lost Eden where the lush nature and half naked bodies feel more real and right than the grey and growing industrial Europe.
Laval does not forget however that the people are working hard and goes in a slightly different direction. In many ways, although Laval is now quite forgotten, his sense of structure, proportions and composition appears almost more mature than Gauguin’s at that time.

But one thing is obvious no matter the artist. The brushstrokes, the contouring in unexpected colors, and the light effects prove how close they were from Van Gogh and other artists that were at the crossing between impressionism and the soon-to-come modern art.