Nevermore O Taiti

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Nevermore O Taiti: Paul Gauguin

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Paul Gauguin Oil Painting - Nevermore O Taiti

Keywords: Nevermore, Taiti

Work Overview: Nevermore O Taïti
Autor Paul Gauguin, 1897
Técnica Óleo sobre lienzo
Estilo Postimpresionismo
Tamaño 83,7 cm × 139,1 cm
Localización Courtauld Institute of Art, Londres, Bandera de Reino Unido Reino Unido

The dinner held in honour of Gauguin before his departure for Tahiti in 1891 included the recitation of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven (1845), in which the bird of the title, visiting a poet on a cold winter evening, repeatedly croaks “Nevermore”. Although Gauguin denied that the “bird of the devil” in the background of his painting bore any resemblance to Poe’s ominous creation, the inscription in the upper left is a clear reference to the poem and a reminder of Gauguin’s erudition and wide ranging interests.

Gauguin wrote to his friend and dealer Daniel de Monfreid that with Nevermore, he intended to use a ‘simple nude’ to suggest ‘a certain savage luxuriousness of a bygone age’. Gauguin viewed the painted surface itself as ‘luxurious’. His model was Pahura, his ‘vahiné’ (Tahitian wife). The setting however is not one of lust but of unease. Are the two figures behind the headboard innocent bystanders, lecherous visitors or malevolent spirits? Their status is left deliberately unclear.

The most important paintings executed during Gauguin's second stay in Tahiti are the Nevermore, The White Horse, and Two Tahitian Women. "Nevermore" is the refrain of The Raven, a famous poem published in 1875 by Edgar Allan Poe.

Nevermore is one of Gauguin's monumental nude paintings. It reflects the depression by which the painter was overcome in 1897 which led to his attempted suicide. This work is a free adaptation of Manet's Olympia, which Gauguin had copied before going to Tahiti in 1891. It attempts to suggest the superstitious dread of the Tahitian woman who lies alone in the foreground. Although Gauguin denied any association with Edgar Allen Poe's poem, the links are too obvious to be overlooked, particularly since it would have been well-known in the literary circles within which Gauguin moved, and had been illustrated in translation by Manet.

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