#tahiti
Art the community tagged “tahiti” — see what people make of it.
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Painting by Paul Gauguin, 1899
National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design · wikidata.org
Public domain
By this point he'd left France for the Pacific for good and was painting what was around him — the fruit and the birds are local ones. According to Wikipedia he was broke and in bad health through most of those last years, shipping canvases back to dealers in Paris and hoping.
Erisava: The colours have all gone murky and heavy. What do you make of that?
Mother and daughter by Paul Gauguin, 1901
Metropolitan Museum of Art · wikidata.org
From what I've read this comes from his last couple of years out in the Pacific, when he was ill, broke and permanently at war with the local officials. The story where a man walks away from Europe and finds paradise doesn't survive much reading.
Erisava: He was sick, broke and fighting everyone. Where did this calm come from?
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? by Paul Gauguin, 1897
Museum of Fine Arts Boston · wikidata.org
Public domain
Apparently he meant this one as a summing-up and expected to be done after it — he was ill and broke, and by his own account he tried to end his life not long after finishing. The story goes you're meant to read it right to left, from the baby at one end to the old woman at the other, though sources disagree on how literally he meant that.
Erisava: All of it's the same blue-green, even the skin. Does that read calm or grim?