FRENCH PAINTING

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)


Parau na te varua ino (Words of the Devil), 1892

Oil on canvas, .917 x .685 m.

Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman

1972.9.12

It is unlikely that anyone who saw this painting when it was exhibited in Paris in 1893 would have understood the Tahitian legend Gauguin inscribed on it. Its symbolism remains complex. The masked kneeling figure is the varua ino of the title, a malevolent spirit who materializes as strange and frightening human forms. The standing woman, on the other hand, is associated through her gestures evoking modesty and shame with Western images of Eve after the Fall. When Gauguin traveled to Polynesia in search of life unspoiled by civilization, he took with him a collection of photographs-of Renaissance paintings, the Parthenon, the Buddhist temple of Borobudur-and often incorporated these images in his Tahitian paintings.

Yet this is not simply a Western theme in Polynesian guise, and it is unlikely that this Eve is meant to embody guilt and remorse. Among the women of Tahiti, Gauguin discovered profound spiritual forces at work. In the Polynesian Eve he identified a channel through which spiritual energy enters the everyday world. Probably, she represents knowledge of good and evil, of life and human mortality-part of Gauguin's long dialogue with life and death. At the upper right, under the curiously serpentine red and green face, Gauguin inserts himself into the scene with the depiction of a sketchy hand, an emblem he used in self-portraits.


Images and texts are for educational, non-commercial use only.

Text by Carla Brenner, Department of Education Publications.
© Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art


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This page was revised on 2/11/95