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

Description

By the winter of 1897, Paul Gauguin was living in near isolation on Tahiti, in failing health and convinced he had little time left. Before what he later described as an attempt to end his life, he set down what he called his philosophical testament on a long stretch of raw sackcloth, working without preliminary drawings and finishing the picture in a matter of weeks. This Where Do We Come From What Are We Where Are We Going reproduction brings that late, urgent painting into a hand-painted oil on canvas you can hang in your own home.

About Where Do We Come from Reproduction

The frieze reads from right to left like an unrolled scroll. A sleeping infant and three crouching women open the sequence; a standing figure reaches up for fruit at the centre while two cloaked figures lean together, trading some private thought; on the left an old woman huddles near a pale, watchful bird, and behind her stands a blue idol with both arms raised, which Gauguin named as a figure of the Beyond. Flat planes of jade, ochre, and deep blue sit against a golden ground, laid in with the broad, unmodulated colour that marks the Post-Impressionist years in Tahiti, each figure separated by outline rather than shadow. In the upper corners, rendered in chrome yellow to mimic the chipped plaster of an old fresco, Gauguin inscribed his title in French on one side and his signature and the date on the other.

ByMuseum artists paint this oil painting reproduction by hand, working from the original palette of jade, ochre, and deep blue and keeping the frieze-like proportions that give the picture its processional weight. Every brush mark, every ridge of pigment along the chrome-yellow borders, is built up in real oil on real canvas, so the surface carries the texture of paint rather than the flat finish of a print. As a fine art reproduction it is sized to echo the elongated format Gauguin chose, so the composition keeps its scroll-like sweep on your own wall.

The hand-painted reproduction

If you are drawn to paintings that ask something of a room rather than simply decorating it, this is a strong candidate for a study, a library, or any long wall that can take its unusual width. It also makes sense as a considered gift for anyone who already loves the art of Gauguin and the Tahitian years. When it arrives, you will have:

• A hand-painted oil on canvas, brushed by a trained painter rather than printed
• A choice of sizes proportioned to the long, frieze-like format of the original
• A piece arriving gallery-ready, prepared for display as soon as it is unpacked
• A certificate of authenticity included with your order
• 90 day returns, with a full refund or a free replacement and no restocking fee