To understand Gauguin’s eventual move to Symbolism it is important first to examine the earlier development of his artistic career and the forces the drove him to Brittany, and in turn, to Symbolism. Although Gauguin did not take up painting as a profession until 1883, when he was thirty-five years old, he most likely began painting ten years before that point. (Wildenstein, xiii) According to art historian Nancy Matthews, in the early stages of his time as a painter Gauguin worked in the Impressionist style but was not well received and was viewed as being “in the second tier of Impressionists.”(Mathews, 40) 
In part because of this lack of acceptance by the Impressionists, (Mathews, 70) and, more significantly, as Bernard Denvir points out, because Gauguin wanted to find a more “primitive” society, he left France for Pont-Aven, Brittany, in the summer of 1886. (Denvir, 22) In his book Gauguin, Letter from Brittany and the South Seas, The Search for Paradise, Denvir describes Pont-Aven as “a Celtic enclave, superstitiously Catholic and royalist in its attitude” which “breathed the last enchantments of the Middle Ages.” (Denvir, 22) The religious piety and Medieval feeling of Brittany Denvir describes gave the Breton people a “ ‘soul’ ” or “ ‘primitive’ essence,” according to art historian Gill Perry. (Perry, 14)
This “essence” drew a number of artists to the area, especially in the summer months, and provided a new subject matter for all these artists, including Gauguin, to explore. (Perry, 10) Yet despite the artist colony in the region, Gauguin still found some of the “primitivism” he was looking for, saying, “I love Brittany. I find my own wildness and primitiveness there.” (Gauguin qtd in Silverman, 93) This “wildness and primitiveness” led to substantial developments in Gauguin’s style over his numerous trips to Pont-Aven between 1886 and 1888. As Le Pinchon stresses in Gauguin, Life, Art, Inspiration, Pont-Aven, Brittany served as Gauguin’s “gateway to Symbolism,” giving him an arena in which to transform from a struggling Impressionist to a revolutionary Symbolist. (Le Pinchon, 69)