polity french polynesia colonialconcept:era modern
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
Oil on canvas (1897) by Paul Gauguin, a monumental frieze-like composition painted in Punaauia, Tahiti, depicting Polynesian figures in a spiritual-philosophical allegory of the cycle of life. Gauguin considered it his masterpiece and painted it in preparation for a planned suicide. Held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Scholarly Significance
Anchor Post-Impressionist and proto-Primitivist painting with Gauguin's monumental philosophical triptych painted in Tahiti (1897), integrating postcolonial critical frame.
Notes
- ·Gauguin painted the work in November–December 1897 at Punaauia, Tahiti, during a period of severe illness (syphilis, poverty) and personal despair following the death of his daughter Aline.
- ·He intended the work as his final statement: in a letter to Daniel de Monfreid (February 1898), he described it as 'a philosophical work comparable to the Gospels' and wrote that after completing it he took arsenic in a suicide attempt.
- ·The composition reads right to left: at far right, a baby; at centre, a young person plucking fruit; at far left, an old woman near death. A blue idol figure is visible at upper centre.
- ·Gauguin inscribed the title in French in the upper-left and upper-right corners: 'D'où venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?'
- ·The work was shown in Paris in 1898 (Vollard Gallery); it was acquired by the MFA Boston in 1936 as a gift from Robert Treat Paine II.
- ·The canvas is deliberately unprimed and rough at the edges — Gauguin refused to stretch or varnish it, preserving a mural-like flatness.
- ·Dimensions: 139.1 × 374.6 cm (54.75 × 147.5 in).