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Larger Image	Larger image may be viewed by UofL faculty, staff, and students only (log-in required using ULink username/password) at: http://echo.louisville.edu/login?url=http://vrc-web.louisville.edu/Jpegs/520/523-46.jpg
Title	The Spirit of the Dead Watches (Manao Tupapau).
Creator	Gauguin, Paul (French painter and printmaker, 1848-1903)
Date	1892
Cultural Context	French European Western European Tahitian Oceanic Polynesian Maori
Style/Period	Post-Impressionist Modern (styles and periods) Modernist
Theme	Paintings (visual works) Oil paintings (visual works) Figures (representations) Figurative art Girls Youth Adolescents Nudes (representations) Nudity Back views Three-quarter views Oblique views Profiles (figures) Fear Supernatural Women Beds (furniture) Furniture Bedcovers Pillows Cushions Symbolic color
Subject	Paintings Oil paintings Girls Youth Teenagers Nudes Backs (Anatomy) Fear Ghosts Women Dead persons Supernatural beings Supernatural Beds Furniture Bedsheets Pillows
Description	“In various letters and diary notes the artist has explained how the preoccupation with ethnological problems, with the symbolism of colors, and certain literary concepts participated in the genesis of this canvas: ‘I painted the nude of a girl. In that position, a trifle can make it indecent. And yet I wanted her that way, the lines and the action interested me. Our girls would be embarrassed to be surprised in that position; the women here not at all. I gave her face a somewhat frightened expression (the fright must be pretended, if not explained, and this within the character of the person—a Maori). These people are very much afraid of the spirit of the dead. I had to explain her fears with as little literary means as possible. To achieve this, the general harmony is somber, sad, frightening, sounding to the eye like a death knell: violet, dark blue, and orange-yellow. I made the linen greenish-yellow, because the linen of these savages is different from ours; thus it brings on and suggests the factitious light. The Maori woman never lies down in the dark, and yet I did not want any effect of lamplight—it’s common. The yellow which connects the orange-yellow and the brown completes the musical accord. There are some flowers in the background but, being imagined, they must not be real. I made them resemble sparks. The Maoris believe that the phosphorescences of the light are the spirits of the dead. Finally, I made the ghost look very simply like a small, harmless woman, because the girl cannot but see the dead themselves bound to the spirit of the dead.’” (p.18)
Location Depicted	Hiva Oa (French Polynesia) Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia) French Polynesia Polynesia Oceania Tahiti (French Polynesia : Island)
Material	Oil on canvas Oil paint (pigmented coating) Paint Canvas
Measurements	28 3/4 x 36 3/8"
Technique	Painting (image-making) Oil painting (technique)
Inscription	Top left: manao tupapau
Work Type	Paintings Oil paintings
Repository	Albright–Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, New York)
Source	Rewald, John. Paul Gauguin. Great Art of the Ages. New York: Abrams, [1969]. (p.[19])
Rights	Photo/illustration credit/reproduced in Rewald courtesy: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (A. Conger Goodyear Collection).
Digital Publisher	University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center
Format	image/jpeg
Digital File Name	VRC 523-46.jpg
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