Shop art print and framed art D'ou venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Ou allons nous ? by Paul Gauguin

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (French: D'où venons-nous ? Que sommes-nous ? Où allons-nous ?) is a painting by French artist Paul Gauguin. The painting was created in Tahiti, and is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. Viewed as a masterpiece by Gauguin, the painting is considered a philosophical work comparable to the themes of the Gospels. The painting is notable for its enigmatic subject and atmosphere. Some scholars have attributed these qualities to personal conflicts that Gauguin experienced while creating this artwork. It is an accentuation of Gauguin's trailblazing Post-Impressionistic style. Gauguin had been a student at the Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, just outside Orléans, from the age of eleven to the age of sixteen. His studies there included a class in Catholic liturgy; the teacher for this class was the Bishop of Orléans, Félix-Antoine-Philibert Dupanloup. Dupanloup had devised his own catechism for students to lead them towards proper spiritual reflections on the nature of life. The three fundamental questions in this catechism were where does humanity come from? where is it going to?, and how does humanity proceed?. Although in later life Gauguin was vociferously anticlerical, these questions from Dupanloup's catechism had lodged in his mind, and where? became the key question that Gauguin asked in his art. Looking for a society more simple and elemental than that of his native France, Gauguin left [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the modern period. It belongs to the post-impressionism style.

 

« D'ou venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Ou allons nous ? » is kept at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Etats-Unis.

 

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