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Home Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, detail, left 2/3 of painting.

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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/290/292-31.jpg
Title	Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, detail, left 2/3 of painting.
Alternative Title	Where come we? What are we? Whither go we?
Translated Title	D'où venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?
Creator	Gauguin, Paul (French painter and printmaker, 1848-1903)
Date	1897
Cultural Context	Polynesian Tahitian Oceanic
Style/Period	Post-Impressionist
Theme	Paintings (visual works) Oil paintings (visual works) Primitivism (artistic concept) Allegories (document genre) Allegory (artistic device) Life Figurative art Figures (representations) Men (male humans) Women Adults Elderly Old age Children (people by age group) Youth Girls Nudes (representations) Nudity Back views Profiles (figures) Front views Costume (mode of fashion) Loincloths Bracelets (jewelry) Jewelry Gesture Sitting Standing Leisure Sculpture (visual work) Statues Idols Religious objects Animals Domestic animals Ducks (birds) Birds Kittens Goats Livestock Landscapes (representations) Jungles Islands Seas Vegetation Plants (vegetation) Trees Fruit Eye-level views Inscriptions Detail views
Subject	Paintings Oil paintings Allegorical paintings Allegories Human life cycle Indigenous peoples Men Women Adults Older people Children Youth Girls Nudes Breasts Backs (Anatomy) Clothing & dress Bracelets Jewelry Gestures Sitting Standing Eating & drinking Leisure Social life Sculpture Idols Religious articles Animals Birds Ducks Cats Goats Livestock Landscapes (Representations) Tropical forests Islands Seas Trees Plants Fruit Inscriptions Details
Description	"Where Do We Come From? offers a flowing composition divided into three main figure groupings set in a jungle clearing with the sea in the background. In the center a Polynesian Eve, reminiscent of Botticelli's Giuliano de' Medici in the Allegory of Spring, reaches up to pick a fruit from a tree branch; at either side are groups of native women and children, apparently representing the various ages of man. In the background an idol glows with an eerie bluish light, and two rosy phantom-like figures glide by. Before them, in the words of the artist, '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.' Setting off the darkish golden yellow of the main figures is the blue-green of the picture's pervasive tonality, its unifying effect further enhanced by the all-embracing pattern of Gauguin's distinctively free, curvilinear drawing. […] Gauguin denied that the allegory had any explicit meaning and, in a letter to André Fontainas, stressed the vague and uncertain nature of his creation and its abstract, musical quality. 'My dream is intangible,' he wrote, 'it implies no allegory; as Mallarmé said, "It is a musical poem and needs no libretto."' Be that as it may, the imagery suggests certain general meanings: life and a supernatural Beyond confront each other and merge imperceptibly in a primeval setting. Lascivious, curving forms of jungle growth and the languorous, rhythmic undulation of the sea gently envelop living forms. The painting is both a cyclical allegory of life, from birth to death, and a philosophical meditation played out on a darkening stage. Related allegories, showing a similar preoccupation with the life cycle and with the mystery of what might lie beyond death, preoccupied many artists of the Symbolist movement." (Excerpt, p.[44])
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) Canvas
Measurements	4' 6 13/16" x 12' 3 1/2"
Technique	Oil painting (technique) Painting (image-making)
Inscription	Top left corner: D'où Venons Nous/ Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous
Work Type	Oil paintings Paintings Details
Repository	Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, Massachusetts)
Source	Hunter, Sam, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler. Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. 3rd rev ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000. (p.[44], fig.50).
Rights	Reproduced in Hunter courtesy: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Tompkins Collection); © All Rights Reserved. Hunter, Modern Art: Copyright © 2000 The Vendome Press, New York. Further, it should be noted that many of the art works reproduced in this volume are subject to claims of copyright in the United States and throughout the world, particularly for those artists represented by ADAGP and SPADEM, both located in Paris and exclusively represented in the United States by Artists Rights Society, New York. For other artists, mainly American, the copyright agent is VAGA, New York.
Digital Publisher	University of Louisville Department of Fine Arts/Allen R. Hite Art Institute Visual Resources Center
Format	image/jpeg
Digital File Name	VRC 292-31.jpg
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Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, detail, left 2/3 of painting.

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