“I ask of divided brushwork not the objective rendering of light, but iridescences and certain aspects of colour still foreign to painting. I make a kind of chromatic versification and for syllables I use strokes which, variable in quantity, cannot differ in dimension without modifying the rhythm of a pictorial phraseology destined to translate the diverse emotions aroused by nature.”
- Jean Metzinger

Bretagne, Bord de mer, is an exceptional example of Jean Metzinger’s early Neo-Impressionist approach to painting, which preceded his Cubist experiments. Painted en plein air, it was realised during the artist’s sojourn in Brittany in 1906, close to his birthplace of Nantes. The scene likely represents a general view of the bay of Audierne, in Poulgoazec (fig.1).

Fig. 1. View of Audierne - Poulgoazec

The present work was among those exhibited at the Salon des Independants in 1906, which garnered Metzinger wide public recognition, following his move to Paris in the previous year, where he met Georges Seurat and Paul Cézanne.