Color as Feeling

Paul Gauguin

Merahi metua no Tehamana (Tehamana Has Many Parents)

1893

Oil on jute canvas, 75 × 53 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago

A girl in a striped, high-necked dress is posed before a wall of glyphs and figures. She holds a fan from Samoa and wears white flowers in her hair.

• Behind her, glyphs derived from a tablet from Easter Island meet a goddess mixing Polynesian with Hindu imagery. The encounter of cultures is one he staged.
• It was first shown at his Durand-Ruel exhibition in Paris in November 1893.
• Look at her upright posture and steady look toward the viewer.
• The title is lettered at lower left, the signature at lower center.
• Mr. and Mrs. Charles Deering McCormick gave it to the Art Institute in 1980.

The Art Institute identifies the sitter, named in the title, as a Tahitian girl of 13. The museum says the picture turns her into an image of his own desire.

Image: The Art Institute of Chicago · CC0