Pont-Aven, in Brittany, northeastern France, attracted artists from France and other countries from the 1860s on. Gauguin first visited there in 1886, when he was thirty-eight. This painting dates from his second visit. While the green-carpeted land suggests the coming of spring, the scene is deserted and lonely. The composition looks from the woods known as the Bois d’Amour towards the Aven River and a fenced horse pasture on the opposite shore. In the background is Sainte-Marguerite’s Hill.