Gauguin’s best-known canvases are scattered across museums in Paris, New York, Boston, Brussels, Buffalo, Philadelphia, London and Washington. This guide stops at nine of the most searched-for: what each one shows, where it hangs, why it matters and what is worth looking at in it. For the life and the technique there is a separate article; this one is about the paintings.
Arearea, 1892 – Musée d’Orsay, Paris
The title is Tahitian and means joy, or amusement; the work is also known as The Red Dog. Two women sit in the foreground, a tree trunk cuts across the canvas, and below them a red dog walks past. The sky has gone: the space is built out of successive planes of colour – green, yellow, red.
What to look at: that dog. It is not brown and it is not grey, because the colour of a dog did not interest Gauguin as information. It was exactly this arbitrariness of colour that later fascinated the Fauves. Arearea in our range.
Ia Orana Maria, 1891 – Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Tahitian title means Hail Mary. Gauguin moved the Christian scene to Tahiti: Mary and Jesus are Tahitian, in a red pareu and barefoot, and two local women stand beside them in an attitude of worship. The painting is at the Metropolitan under accession number 51.112.2, bequest of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951.
What to look at: the haloes. They are there, thin and gold, above the heads of figures European iconography had never depicted that way. That is the whole point of the painting in one detail. Ia Orana Maria in our range.
Manao tupapau, 1892 – Buffalo AKG Art Museum
The English subtitle Spirit of the Dead Watching translates the Tahitian title. A young woman lies face down on the bed and looks back over her shoulder; at the foot of the bed stands a dark hooded figure, the tupapau, the spirit of the dead in Tahitian belief. Tehamana sat for it.
What to look at: the direction of the gaze. The woman is not looking at the spirit but away from it, towards whoever is looking at the painting. Fear is painted as a turned head, not as an expression on a face. Manao tupapau in our range.
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, 1897–1898 – Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Gauguin’s most ambitious canvas, painted in Tahiti while he was ill and without money. It reads from right to left: an infant, adults in their prime, an old woman at the left edge. A bluish idol stands between them.
What to look at: the fact that the questions in the title are not painted as an allegory with its answers attached. Nobody in the scene is explaining anything to anybody. The painting asks the question and leaves it open. Where Do We Come From? in our range.
Nevermore, 1897 – Courtauld Gallery, London
A Tahitian woman lies on a bed, two figures talk in the background, and a bird perches on the window sill. Gauguin wrote the title in English, straight onto the canvas.
What to look at: the bird and the lettering. The link to Poe’s The Raven is often made; whether it was intended is not something we settle here. The bird is certainly there, and the title is certainly English. Nevermore in our range.
Parahi te marae, 1892 – Philadelphia Museum of Art
A marae is a Tahitian sacred enclosure. The title means roughly there dwells the temple, and the museum also records the work as The Sacred Mountain. The scene is made up of a fence with ornamental heads, flowering slopes and a mountain behind.
What to look at: the fact that the place does not exist. The museum itself states that the scene is not a real sanctuary but Gauguin’s invention. The painting is therefore a record of how he imagined Tahiti, not of how Tahiti looked. Parahi te marae in our range.
The Yellow Christ, 1889 – Buffalo AKG Art Museum
Breton women in white coifs kneel at the foot of a cross in the middle of an autumn field. The Christ is yellow, the field is yellow, the trees are a brown orange.
What to look at: the cross is not invented. The central figure is based on a seventeenth-century painted wooden crucifix that hangs in the Trémalo chapel near Pont-Aven. Gauguin took an existing piece of folk carving and set it in the landscape as though the scene were happening now. The Yellow Christ in our range.
The Green Christ, 1889 – Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
Painted in November 1889 at Pont-Aven, the same autumn as The Yellow Christ. A Breton woman in traditional dress kneels at the foot of a calvary – a stone cross with a greenish Christ – holding a black lamb.
What to look at: the lamb, and the colour of the stone. The green is not a lighting effect but a decision: the stone cross is coloured as though it belonged to the landscape rather than standing as a monument inside it. The Green Christ in our range.
Breton Girls Dancing, Pont-Aven, 1888 – National Gallery of Art, Washington
Three girls in Breton dress dance in a ring in a meadow, with the houses and the church tower of Pont-Aven behind them. The work belongs to Gauguin’s first Breton period.
What to look at: the coifs. They are painted as white planes with an outline, almost like paper cut-outs, and here you can already see what would become his entire language in Tahiti a few years later. Breton Girls Dancing in our range.
Frequently asked questions
What does Arearea mean?
Arearea is a Tahitian word meaning joy or amusement, and the 1892 painting, also known as The Red Dog, hangs in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
What does Ia Orana Maria mean?
Ia Orana Maria is the Tahitian greeting corresponding to the Christian Hail Mary, and it is the title of Gauguin’s 1891 painting held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
What does Manao tupapau mean?
Manao tupapau translates as spirit of the dead watching and refers to the tupapau, the spirit of the departed in Tahitian belief, who stands at the foot of the bed in the 1892 painting.
What does Parahi te marae mean?
Parahi te marae means roughly there dwells the temple, a marae being a Tahitian sacred enclosure, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art also records the work as The Sacred Mountain.
Where is Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
The 1897–1898 canvas is held by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and is regarded as Gauguin’s most ambitious work.
Where is The Yellow Christ?
The Yellow Christ of 1889 is at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Buffalo, New York, and its central figure is based on a seventeenth-century wooden crucifix in the Trémalo chapel near Pont-Aven.
Why does Nevermore have an English title?
Gauguin wrote the English title Nevermore directly onto the 1897 canvas now held by the Courtauld Gallery in London; the link to Poe’s The Raven is often made but cannot be stated as fact.
Is the place in Parahi te marae real?
No: the Philadelphia Museum of Art states that the scene is not a real Polynesian sanctuary but an invention of Gauguin’s.
Who sat for Manao tupapau?
Tehamana sat for the 1892 painting Manao tupapau, and was the model during Gauguin’s first stay on the island.
Every Gauguin in our range is gathered on the Paul Gauguin page, and each one is a hand-painted oil painting reproduction on canvas.
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