ABSTRACT
In 1897, towards the end of his life, during his extended stay in Tahiti, the artist Paul Gauguin (pronounced ‘go-gan’) painted Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? It is a very large canvas – 1.39 × 3.74 metres (4’ 6’ × 12’ 4’) – and is generally considered his greatest work. Gauguin indicated that the painting should be ‘read’ from right to left, with the three main groups of figures illustrating the questions posed in the title. The three women with a child represent the beginning of life; the central 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’; while at her feet ‘a strange white bird … represents the futility of words’. Beyond this, Gauguin wanted the picture to remain a mystery. ‘Explanations and obvious symbols would give the canvas a sad reality’, he wrote, ‘and the questions asked [by the title] would no longer be a poem.’
