Description
Paul Gauguin – Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
| Year of Creation: | 1897 |
| Original size: | 374.6 cm x 139.1 cm |
| Paint style: | Symbolism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Oil on canvas Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?is one of Gauguin’s most important paintings on canvas.
Gauguin vowed to commit suicide after completing this painting – something he had attempted in the past. According to the author, the oil on canvas should be studied from right to left, with the three main groups of figures on the canvas representing the questions Gauguin added to the painting.
Three women with a child represent the beginning of life; the group in the middle symbolizes the existence of the adolescent years; and in the final group on the left side of the canvas, the artist has painted an elderly woman who seems resigned to the imminent arrival of death and is absorbed in her own thoughts. At her feet, a strange white bird represents the meaninglessness of words. The blue statuette in the background represents what Gauguin himself described as “the other world”.
Gauguin is for oil on canvas Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?said that it surpassed all his previous works and that he would never be able to paint a picture better than this one in the future.
It is a large-scale oil painting full of philosophies, and according to the artist himself, he completed this work with the greatest enthusiasm, because Gauguin had previously been forced to commit suicide by poverty and despair. He synthesizes the fantasies of dreams and the feelings of life in Tahiti into this composition. The three-level composition of this painting arranges three protagonists from right to left, a baby, a young man picking fruit and an old woman, who alternately reveal to us the secrets of birth, life and death. It is a process that human beings must go through throughout their lives, but it is also Gauguin’s summary of his own inner thinking and proof that his life was not wasted. The color of the painting is simple and full of mystery, and the technique of the plot is full of oriental decoration and romance, and the painter’s philosophical questioning about the meaning of life is implied in the mottled, beautiful and dreamy pictures.
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), a representative painter of post-impressionism. Gauguin was born in Paris, the son of a journalist and the daughter of a Peruvian writer. Gauguin’s paintings are unique in the history of Western modern art for their primitive and symbolic tendencies, as well as for their so-called “synthesis” style. Gauguin was a sailor and businessman in his early years. In 1871 he came to Paris to become a stockbroker. During this time, under the influence of his friend Schfnack, he became interested in painting. In 1883, Gauguin, who had always been an amateur painter, suddenly abandoned his promising and enviable banking position and decided to become a professional painter. He was 35 years old at the time. At first he was obsessed with impressionist painting and participated in several impressionist painting exhibitions. Later, when he was driven by the aesthetic concept of symbolism, he left impressionism and opposed the impressionistic artistic aspiration for the objective recreation of nature and advocated the distinction of artistic images. The objective image is at the same time full of subjective feelings of the artist.
