Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

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Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?: Paul Gauguin

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Paul Gauguin Oil Painting - Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

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Work Overview: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
D'où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous
Artist Paul Gauguin
Year 1897–1898
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions 139 cm × 375 cm (55 in × 148 in)
Location Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? is a painting by French artist Paul Gauguin. Gauguin inscribed the original French title in the upper left corner: D'où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous. The inscription the artist wrote on his canvas has no question mark, no dash, and all words are capitalized. In the upper right corner he signed and dated the painting: P. Gauguin / 1897.[1] The painting was created in Tahiti, and is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Gauguin had been a student at the Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, just outside Orléans, from the age of eleven to the age of sixteen. His subjects there included a class in Catholic liturgy; the teacher for this class was the Bishop of Orléans, Félix-Antoine-Philibert Dupanloup. Dupanloup had devised his own catechism to be lodged in the minds of the young schoolboys, and to lead them towards proper spiritual reflections on the nature of life. The three fundamental questions in this catechism were: "Where does humanity come from?" "Where is it going to?", "How does humanity proceed?". Although in later life Gauguin was vociferously anticlerical, these questions from Dupanloup's catechism obviously had lodged in his mind, and "where?" became the key question that Gauguin asked in his art.[2][3]

Looking for a society more simple and elemental than that of his native France, Gauguin left for Tahiti in 1891. In addition to several other paintings that express his highly individualistic mythology, he completed this painting in 1897 or 1898. Gauguin considered it a masterpiece and the grand culmination of his thought. He was in despair when he undertook the painting, mourning the tragic death of his favourite daughter earlier in the year and oppressed by debts, and had planned to kill himself on finishing it. He subsequently made an unsuccessful attempt with an overdose of arsenic. Thomson thinks it quite possible that he only painted in the inscription while recovering from the attempt.

Gauguin indicated that the painting should be read from right to left, with the three major figure groups illustrating the questions posed in the title. The three women with a child represent the beginning of life; the middle group symbolizes the daily existence of young adulthood; and in the final group, according to the artist, "an old woman approaching death appears reconciled and resigned to her thoughts"; at her feet, "a strange white bird...represents the futility of words." The blue idol in the background apparently represents what Gauguin described as "the Beyond." Of its entirety he said, "I believe that this canvas not only surpasses all my preceding ones, but that I shall never do anything better—or even like it."

The painting is an accentuation of Gauguin's trailblazing post-impressionistic style; his art stressed the vivid use of colors and thick brushstrokes, tenets of the impressionists (though the Impressionists focused on quick brushstrokes), while it aimed to convey an emotional or expressionistic strength. It emerged in conjunction with other avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, including cubism and fauvism.

In 1898, Gauguin sent the painting to Georges-Daniel de Monfreid in Paris. Monfreid passed it to Ambroise Vollard along with eight other thematically related pictures shipped earlier. They went on view at Vollard's gallery from November to December 1898.[7] The exhibition was a success, although D'où Venons Nous? received mixed reviews. The critic Andre Fontainas of the Mercure de France acknowledged a grudging respect for the work but thought the allegory impenetrable were it not for the inscription, and compared the painting unfavourably to the murals of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes who had died recently. Vollard had already purchased the other works as a job lot from Monfreid for 1,000 francs (Gauguin was furious when he found out),[8] but refrained from purchasing the larger monumental work and had difficulty selling it on.

Charles Morice (fr) two years later tried to raise a public subscription to purchase the painting for the nation. To assist this endeavour, Gauguin wrote a detailed description of the work concluding with the messianic remark that he spoke in parables: "Seeing they see not, hearing they hear not". The subscription nevertheless failed. Vollard eventually sold the painting for 2,500 francs (about $10,000 in year 2000 US dollars) in 1901 to Gabriel Frizeau (fr), of which Vollard's commission was perhaps as much as 500 francs.[9]

Subsequently, the painting was consigned and sold to several other Parisian and European merchants and collectors until it was purchased by the Marie Harriman Gallery in New York City in 1936. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, acquired it from the Marie Harriman Gallery on 16 April 1936.

In 1891, Gauguin left France for Tahiti, seeking in the South Seas a society that was simpler and more elemental than that of his homeland. In Tahiti, he created paintings that express a highly personal mythology. He considered this work—created in 1897, at a time of great personal crisis—to be his masterpiece and the summation of his ideas. Gauguin’s letters suggest that the fresco-like painting should be read from right to left, beginning with the sleeping infant. He describes the various figures as pondering the questions of human existence given in the title; the blue idol represents “the Beyond.” The old woman at the far left, “close to death,” accepts her fate with resignation.

Inscription
Upper left: D'ou Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous; Upper right: P. Gauguin / 1897

Provenance
1898, sent by the artist in Tahiti to Georges Daniel de Monfreid (b. 1856 - d. 1929), Paris; consigned by Monfreid and his agent to Ambroise Vollard (b. 1867 - d. 1939), Paris [see note 1]; 1901, sold by Vollard to Gabriel Frizeau (b. 1870 - d. 1938), Bordeaux [see note 2]; probably 1913, sold by Frizeau to the Galérie Barbazanges, Paris; before 1920, sold by Barbazanges to J. B. Stang, Oslo; 1935, probably sold by Stang to Alfred Gold, Berlin and Paris [see note 4]. 1936, Marie Harriman Gallery, New York [see note 5]; 1936, sold by the Harriman Gallery to the MFA for $80,000. (Accession Date: April 16, 1936)

NOTES:
[1] The painting was exhibited at the Galerie Ambroise Vollard, November 17 - December 10, 1898.

[2] On Frizeau's acquisition and sale of the painting, see Claire Frêches-Thory, "Le premier acheteur d'Où venons-nous? Le collectionneur bordelais, Gabriel Frizeau (1870 - 1938) et ses rapports avec Gauguin," in Rencontres Gauguin à Tahiti: actes du colloque 20 et 21 juin 1989 (Papeete, 1989), pp. 48 - 56. The Galérie Barbazanges exhibited the painting in 1914.

[3] The Galérie Barbazanges sought to buy the painting back from Stang in 1920; see Frêches-Thory (as above, n. 2), p. 51.

[4] A letter of February 1, 1935 to the dealer Germain Seligmann, held by the Archives of American Art (Seligmann papers, box 426), states that the dealer Alfred Gold said the painting was still the property of Stang ("la grand Gauguin était toujours la proprieté de Stang") and that it would be included in the forthcoming Brussels exhibition. The writer has not been identified. Later that year, Gold lent the painting to the exhibition "L'impressionisme," Palais de Beaux-Arts, Brussels, June 15 - September 29, 1935, cat. no. 28. Gold purchased other works from the Stang collection, and almost certainly acquired this painting directly from him.

[5] A letter from the supervisor of Museum Education at the MFA (April 21, 1936) states that Marie Harriman acquired the painting in Paris. It was exhibited at her New York gallery, April 22 - May 9, 1936.

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Summary

A variety of figures, all of them Tahitian, sprawl across the wide frame of the painting, each engaged in a particular and significant act. In the center of the image, a man wearing a simple loincloth picks an apple from the top edge of the image. To his right, a nude person examines his or her underarm, two clothed women in the background walk together with their arms around one another, three women sit together around a babe, and a dog looks inward from the exterior of the right edge.

On the left of the apple-picking man, two white kittens play with one another next to a clothed young girl who eats an apple. Behind her lies a goat. In the far background stands a blue religious statue, to the right of which stands a lone fully clothed woman. At the far left of the painting, a dark-skinned unclothed old woman sits with her head in her hands, next to a seated, nubile young woman with firm, full, bare breasts. A white bird sits to their immediate left.

Commentary

Painted in 1897 and 1898, "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" addresses Paul Gauguin's struggle with the meaning of existence. In 1891, Gauguin emigrated to Tahiti in search of a society more unspoiled than his native France. This piece, part of a series of introspective paintings inspired by his new country, was considered by Gauguin "to be his masterpiece and the summation of his ideas" (see Boston Museum of Fine Arts web site).

The piece should be viewed as a text from right to left--a suggestion imparted by the artist's own letters--with the various figures representative of questions relating to human existence. In this light, the babe at the far right signifies newborn life. The figure of questionable sex whose back is turned to the viewer and who appears to inspect his or her underarm could be understood as the beginning of an individual's realization of gender. The apple-picking male and the girl to his left who sits eating an apple reenact the fable of Adam and Eve and the quest for knowledge.

The old lady at the far left of the frame sits on the verge of death, unclothed as a parallel perhaps to the babe on the painting's far right. As one examines the painting, the questions that make up the artwork's title-"Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?"--invite the viewer to contemplate the meaning of life with regard to the symbols Gauguin has left for us.

Evocative life-cycle juxtapositions: Titian's Three Ages of Man, Cole's Voyage of life: Childhood/Youth/Manhood/Old Age, and Munch's The Dance of Life (see this database for annotations).

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"The bright yellow patches, top right and left, were intended to suggest corners of a fresco or a tapestry, whose corners had rotted, revealing the golden wall beneath. To the right a sleeping child and three crouching women. Two people dressed in purple confide their thoughts to one another. An enormous crouching figure lifts up its arm and stares in astonishment at these two who dare to question their destiny. At the center someone is picking fruit. An idol, its hands mysteriously raised seems to indicate the Beyond. Lastly, an old woman nearing death appears to accept everything. She completes the story!"

Interpreting excerpts of letters Gauguin wrote to a friend, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? can be understood as a meditation on birth, life and death in the light of Maori mythology.

In Where do we come from? Gauguin poses all the existential questions that brought him to Tahiti in the first instance. He draws together a range of former paintings relating to the fable of Adam and Eve in order to address his ideal vision of Tahiti being an earthly Garden of Eden.

Each of the three major sections of this painting contains a different stage of Gauguin's evolving relationship with Eve, throughout his guiding force. Beginning at the left side of the painting and moving to the right, the painting first represents Eve in the form of an old woman, holding her head and crouching into her unclothed body. This image represents the Judeo-Christian school of thought and Gauguin's world before Tahiti. This Eve symbolizes his past and assumes the guilt and shame of humanity.

Towards the centre of the What are we? section of the artwork there is a figure picking fruit in a fairly direct reference to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In addition to the connotation of Eve tasting the forbidden fruit, the ambiguity regarding the sexuality of the fruit picker represents Gauguin's attraction to the ancient concept of hermaphroditism - itself related to the Biblical story of how Eve was created from the rib of Adam.

Gauguin highlights Eve's most important role as the original source of life and knowledge, which would not have existed but for the Fall. Her tall posture displays her acquiring knowledge and distributing it to those around her. Without the Fall, according to Gauguin, the world would have been void of questioning, as is represented by the existential work as a whole. Eve's height is also symbolic of humanity's high point, the development of the sense of self, and humanity's collective ability to stand up and take control of their own destiny.

On the right of the painting is a baby, the expression of the new beginning which Eve represents for Gauguin. Although he finished the painting while suicidal and in poor health, Gauguin continued to reach towards Eve as a last grasp at inspiration, despite his multiple attempts at a new beginning in new environments ultimately failed him.

Gauguin referred to Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? as his "testament," because he planned to take his own life when the painting was finished. He worked feverishly, painting "on sackcloth full of knots and wrinkles," but found the finished work more than acceptable. Gauguin did not kill himself after completion of the work and it is entirely plausible he recognized the significance and breadth of his own piece.

Composition:
Over 3.75 meters in length, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? was the most ambitious painting of Gauguin's career. It presents a summation of his Polynesian imagery, filled with Tahitians of all ages situated at ease within a terrestrial paradise devoid of any sign of European civilization.

Gauguin indicated that the painting should be read from right to left, with the three major groups portraying the questions posed by the title. The three women and baby represent the beginning of life, the middle group symbolizes the normal, everyday existence of adulthood, and in the final scene an old woman approaching death appears reconciled and resigned to her thoughts. Gauguin stated that the "strange white bird represents the futility of words". The blue idol in the background represents the Beyond.

Color palette:
The many forms and deep spaces of this hugely complicated composition are tied together by its overall tonalities in green and blue. It was the element of color that Gauguin called a 'language of the dream'.

His impressive use of brush stroke and color allow him to create a painting that evokes various feelings about the different stages of life. Furthermore, he uses color in order to emphasize various parts of the painting in order to draw the attention of the viewer and accentuate the emotions he wishes to convey.

The repetitive use of a dark blue within the background and with regards to the idol and shadows creates an atmosphere of despair and sadness. The background is a forest, which would normally have been painted with green and brown tones, but is tinted with dark blue, evoking a feeling of the unknown and of the surroundings closing in on the three groups in the foreground. The color blue also matches the idol which represents the Beyond, thus associating the surrounding with the Beyond as well. We see that the only area in which there is significant light is on the pair of young women in the centre, who are able to experience youth and adulthood.

Mood, tone and emotion:
Upon viewing Gauguin's Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? one can sense how the use of color and shadow evokes a feeling of despair. Coupled with the Gauguin's choices in subject matter, the painting creates a description for the entirety of life. As displayed by the parts of the painting enveloped by blue shadow, life is shrouded almost entirely by the Beyond except for the portion of youth and adulthood in which you can temporarily free yourself from sadness and fear.

Brush stroke:
Combined with his use of color, Gauguin uses emphasis in brush stroke through various parts of the painting in order to draw the attention of the viewer.

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? is not only the most colossal canvas that Gauguin painted in his entire life, but also the work that expound the entire philosophical and pictorial doctrine of the artist.

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Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? is a huge, brilliantly colored but enigmatic work painted on rough, heavy sackcloth. It contains numerous human, animal, and symbolic figures arranged across an island landscape. The sea and Tahiti’s volcanic mountains are visible in the background. It is Paul Gauguin’s largest painting, and he understood it to be his finest work.
Where are we going? represents the artist’s painted manifesto created while he was living on the island of Tahiti. The French artist transitioned from being a “Sunday painter” (someone who paints for his or her own enjoyment) to becoming a professional after his career as a stockbroker failed in the early 1880s. He visited the Pacific island Tahiti in French Polynesia staying from 1891 to 1893. He then returned to Polynesia in 1895, painted this massive canvas there in 1897, and eventually died in 1903, on Hiva Oa in the Marquesas islands.

Gauguin wrote to his friend Daniel de Monfried, who managed Gauguin’s career in Paris while the artist remained in the South Pacific, “I believe that this canvas not only surpasses all my preceding ones, but [also] that I shall never do anything better, or even like it.” Gauguin completed Where are we going? at a feverish rate, allegedly within one month’s time, and even claimed to de Monfried that he went into the mountains to attempt suicide after the work was finished. Gauguin—ever the master of self-promotion and highly conscious of his image as a vanguard artist—may or may not have actually poisoned himself with arsenic as he alleged, but this legend was quite pointedly in line with the painting’s themes of life, death, poetry, and symbolic meaning.

Gauguin himself provided a telling description of the painting’s esoteric imagery in the same letter to de Monfried, written in February 1898:
It is a canvas four meters fifty in width, by one meter seventy in height. The two upper corners are chrome yellow, with an inscription on the left and my name on the right, like a fresco whose corners are spoiled with age, and which is appliquéd upon a golden wall. To the right at the lower end, a sleeping child and three crouching women. Two figures dressed in purple confide their thoughts to one another. An enormous crouching figure, out of all proportion and intentionally so, raises its arms and stares in astonishment upon these two, who dare to think of their destiny. A figure in the center is picking fruit. Two cats near a child. A white goat. An idol, its arms mysteriously raised in a sort of rhythm, seems to indicate the Beyond. Then lastly, an old woman nearing death appears to accept everything, to resign herself to her thoughts. She completes the story! At her feet a strange white bird, holding a lizard in its claws, represents the futility of words….So I have finished a philosophical work on a theme comparable to that of the Gospel.*
Not only does Gauguin’s text clarify some of the painting’s abstruse, idiosyncratic iconography, it also invites us to “read” the image. Gauguin suggests that the figures have mysterious symbolic meanings and that they might answer the questions posed by the work’s title. And, in the manner of a sacred scroll written in an ancient language, the painting is to be read from right to left: from the sleeping infant—where we come from—to the standing figure in the middle—what we are—and ending at the left with the crouching old woman—where we are going.

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