# Anatomy of an Artwork #3: Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897)

- Author: artcycle
- Date: 2025-05-01
- Canonical: https://artcycle.co/en/journal/nereden-geliyoruz-neyiz-nereye-gidiyoruz
- Category: Anatomy of an Artwork

> “Can the three great questions of existence fit into a single painting?” We explore the visual testament Gauguin created in Tahiti and the cyclical anatomy of life.

*Can the three great questions of existence fit into a single painting?*

These three questions are not only the title of Gauguin’s painting; they are also humanity’s oldest existential quest. Accompanying us from the moment we open our eyes, these questions are a call to consciousness woven from faith, death, identity and time. On Gauguin’s canvas, answers to them are sought both personally and universally, through nature and figures.

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## At First Glance, What Story Does the Painting Tell?

![Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897): Tahitian figures in a blue forest](https://artcycle.co/media/2026/10/paul-gauguin-dou-venons-nous-45416256.webp)

Think of this huge painting, made by Gauguin in Tahiti, as a stage: moving from left to right, we witness a cycle of life. A newborn baby, the searches of youth, pensive adult figures and, in one corner, the silence of death… This is not only a painting; it is a visual poem of the human condition.

## How Does the Composition Order the Three Questions?

- **Where do we come from? (left):** a naked baby representing birth and the women watching over it. Beginning, innocence and instinctive existence.
- **What are we? (centre):** young women, a figure picking fruit and a man lost in thought. Consciousness, the body, desires and the question of identity.
- **Where are we going? (right):** an old, crouching woman; the inevitability of death and time. The strange animal figure behind her is perhaps the symbol of the unknown, of the world beyond.

## What Emotions Do Colour and Light Convey?

Using warm yet still colours, Gauguin gives the scene a mystical air. The contrasts between the blue night and the orange skin tones emphasise the transience of life and human helplessness. There is no dramatic expression on the figures’ faces; each is absorbed in itself.

## What Do the Details Tell Us?

- ***White bird:*** the strange white bird at the upper right is interpreted as “the soul that cannot speak”. It may be a metaphor for death or for the unconscious.
- **Figure holding an apple:** the woman in the middle section holds an apple. This refers to knowledge, sin and awareness: the legacy of Adam and Eve.
- **Nakedness:** all the figures are natural, unadorned. This presents a human condition stripped of the layers of civilisation: plain, vulnerable, genuine.

## Gauguin’s State of Mind: A Farewell?

When he made this painting, Gauguin was beset by physical illness, poverty and the cultural loneliness he felt in Tahiti. In a state of mind drifting ever further from life, he treated the painting not only as a work of art but also as an inner reckoning. It is no accident that he wrote the painting’s title, not his signature, in its corner: this painting is his reckoning with life, a kind of visual testament.

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Today we still wrestle with the same questions: Who are we? Where do we belong? And what lies at the end of the road? Gauguin’s work is far more than an individual narrative: it is a picture of collective existence, a bridge of consciousness built between past and future.