Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? by Paul Gaugin

Paul Gauguin was born in Paris, France, in 1848. His mother, Alina Maria, was the daughter of the half-Peruvian activist Flora Tristan, and in 1849, the Gauguin family left Paris for Lima, Peru in response to Louis Napoleon Bonaparte taking power.

While in Peru, Gauguin first discovered his passion for art, and may of his later paintings are influenced by the natural and wild beauty that he first discovered in Peru as a young boy.

After returning to France and attending school, Gauguin became a successful businessman. He married a Danish woman, Mette Sophia Gad, with whom he had five children.

Although painting started out as a simple hobby for Gauguin, he soon realized it to be his true passion and devoted his life to art, causing his marriage to fail. He lived with his eldest son in Paris for a time before moving to Tahiti to focus on his painting.

Gauguin painted “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” while in Tahiti. The painting portrays Tahitian natives in meditative poses with a primitive idol, meant to be a forbidding and looming in the background. Each figure is engaged in a specific symbolic act, making the work as a whole very profound. The painting is extremely dark and ominous in nature, and is meant to address Gauguin’s struggle with the meaning of life. The figures depicted are all representations of the human existence, including new life, the realization of gender, death as shown by the newborn baby, the person of indeterminate gender with their back turned, and the elderly, naked woman. The title itself causes the viewer to question the purpose of life and their own existence.