Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? - encyclopedia article about Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?.

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897–1898, original French title: D'où venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?) is one of Paul Gauguin's most famous paintings. Created in Tahiti, it is currently housed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

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

Paul Gauguin, 1897–1898

oil on canvas, 139.1 × 374.6 cm

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Provenance and history

Gauguin left for Tahiti in 1891, looking for a society more elemental and simplistic than that of his native France. In addition to several other paintings that he created which express a highly individualistic mythology, he began this painting in 1897 and finished it by 1898, considering it a masterpiece and grand culmination of his thoughts.

The curators of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where the painting now resides, are continuously updating their record of the painting's ownership history, suggesting that their list is not comprehensive. In any case, in 1898, Gauguin sent the painting to Georges Daniel de Monfreid in Paris. Subsequently, it 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 in 1936. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston acquired it from the Marie Harriman Gallery on 16 April 1936.

It is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago in the exhibit "Cezanne to Picasso."[1] It is approximately five feet (1.5 m) high and over twelve feet (3.60 m) long.

Style and analysis

Gauguin—after vowing that he would commit suicide following this painting's completion, something he had previously attempted—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 postimpressionistic style; his art stressed the vivid use of colors and thick brushstrokes, tenets of the impressionists, 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.

Background

Gauguin had been a student at the Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, just outside of 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.^[1]

References

Gauguin Tahiti. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved on 30 April 2005.
Collections Database: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Retrieved on 30 April 2005.

Footnotes

1. ^ Martin Gayford, The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles, Fig Tree, Penguin, 2006. ISBN 0-670-91497-5. See pages 99 – 100.

French (français, pronounced [fʁɑ̃ˈsɛ]) is a Romance language originally spoken in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, and today by about 300 million people around the world as either
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Paul Gauguin

Birth name Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin
7 May 1848
Paris, France
8 May 1903 (aged 56)
Atuona, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia

painting, engraving
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Tahiti<nowiki />

Tahiti is famous for its black beaches

Geography
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Location Pacific Ocean <nowiki />
Archipelago Society Islands<nowiki /> <nowiki /> <nowiki />

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Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Established 1870
Location Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts
Director Malcolm Rogers
Website www.mfa.
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Boston, Massachusetts

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Nickname: Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe), The Cradle of Liberty, City on the Hill, Athens of America
Location in Suffolk County in Massachusetts, USA
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Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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''Nickname(s): Bay State State Bird = Black-capped Chickadee''
''Motto(s): Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem (Latin: By the sword she seeks peace under liberty)''

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Motto
"In God We Trust" (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum" ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Established 1870
Location Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts
Director Malcolm Rogers
Website www.mfa.
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Motto
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"
Anthem
"La Marseillaise"

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Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Established 1870
Location Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts
Director Malcolm Rogers
Website www.mfa.
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Ville de Paris

City flag City coat of arms

Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur
(Latin: "Tossed by the waves, she does not sink")

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, as seen from the esplanade du Trocadéro.
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State of New York

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Nickname(s): The Empire State
Motto(s): Excelsior!

Official language(s) None

Capital Albany
Largest city New York City

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April 16 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1900s 1910s 1920s - 1930s - 1940s 1950s 1960s
1933 1934 1935 - 1936 - 1937 1938 1939

Year 1936 (MCMXXXVI
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Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1914, to describe the development of European art since Monet (Impressionism). John Rewald, one of the first professional art historians to focus on the birth of early modern art, limited the
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Impressionism was a 19th century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists, who began exhibiting their art publicly in the 1860s. The name of the movement is derived from the title of a Claude Monet work,
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Avant-garde (pronounced /ɑvɑ̃ gɑʁd/) in French means "front guard", "advance guard", or "vanguard".
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twentieth century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1901 and ended on December 31, 2000, according to the Gregorian calendar. Some historians consider the era from about 1914 to 1991 to be the Short Twentieth Century.
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Cubism was a 20th century art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music and literature. Analytic Cubism,
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Les Fauves (French for The Wild Beasts) were a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities, and the imaginative use of deep color over the representational values retained by Impressionism.
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Commune of
Orléans

Orléans and the Loire River

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Country France
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A liturgy is the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to their particular traditions. In religion, it may refer to, or include, an elaborate formal ritual such as the Catholic Mass, or a daily activity such as the Muslim Salats (see
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The French Catholic diocese of Orléans (Aurelianum in Latin) now comprises the Départment of Loiret. It was suffragan of the archbishopric of Paris from 1622; previously of the archbishopric of Sens.
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Félix Antoine Philibert Dupanloup (January 3, 1802 – October 11, 1878) was a French ecclesiastic.

He was born at Saint-Félix, in Haute-Savoie. In his earliest years he was confided to the care of his brother, a priest in the diocese of Chambéry.
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catechism (κατηχισμός in Greek) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present.
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