Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
Mahana no atua (Day of the God)
INV-2794
Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)1894
Mahana no atua (Day of the God)
Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903) →Post-Impressionism19th centurynineteenth centuryoil on canvasfrance
Date
1894
Medium
Oil on linen canvas
Dimensions
68 × 91 cm (26 7/8 × 36 in.); Framed: 87.7 × 110.5 × 6.4 cm (34 1/2 × 43 1/2 × 2 1/2 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection
In this tropical paradise of the artist’s invention, a deity presides over figures walking and resting on an embankment. Rhythmically arranged in groups of two and three, the figures appear more as symbolic forms than as portraits of individuals. Pools of water in interlocking, abstract zones of acidic color surround the feet of a bather, who is flanked by two prone figures—or perhaps the same person seen from two angles.
Unlike his other Tahitian-inspired landscapes, this painting was produced in Paris shortly after Paul Gauguin’s first trip to the island. Drawn from fantasy and memory, the psychedelic composition is one of the most abstract and avant-garde works of the artist’s career.
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