Gauguin Where Do We Come From? What Are
We? Where Are We Going?
Artist: Paul Gauguin (French b. 1848 d. 1903)
Date: 1897
Dimensions: 4’7” x 12’3”
Medium: oil on canvas
Current location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Period: Post-Impressionism
Genre: no traditional genre

Quick Notes:
  • Some people hypothesize that the painting represents the three ages of man (childhood,
    middle age, old age) read from right to left. In History of Art, H.W. Janson writes, “It
    begins with the sleeping girl, continues with the beautiful young woman (a Tahitian Eve)
    in the center picking fruit, and ends with ‘an old woman approaching death who seems
    reconciled and resigned to her thoughts.’”
  • Gauguin mixed elements of Christian and pagan religious symbolism. But Gauguin did
    not confine his pagan symbolism to Tahiti only, rather he included elements of other non-
    Western religious iconography that ignored proper context.
  • Gauguin planned the painting as a monumental summary of his time in Tahiti. Numerous
    preparatory sketches exist.

Suggested Compare-Contrast Target:
  • Michelangelo, Temptation and Expulsion (from the Sistine Chapel ceiling)
  • Assorted murals by Puvis de Chavannes


Writing Prompts:
  • Which influence dominates this composition: the European tradition or the Polynesian
    tradition?
  • How does this piece exemplify the Post-Impressionist style?


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