Poèmes Barbares

Gauguin’s model for this painting was likely Pau’ura a Tai, a 14-year-old girl whom the artist described as his “native wife” while living in Tahiti in the 1890s. Widelycriticized today, the painter’s sexual relationships with local adolescents were also condemned by some of his contem poraries in French Polynesia. The painting maybe a response to the 1896 death in infancy of Gauguin’s daughter with Pau’ura a Tai. The figure’s wings, posture, and drapery evoke representations of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child. But instead of cradling a baby in her left arm, she protectively clutches her abdomen, emphasizing her loss. Reinforcing this narrative of birth and death is the presence at lower left of Ta’aroa, the Tahitian creator of the universe. Pau’ura a Tai averts her gaze from the deity, who Gauguin anthropomorphizes in an unusually childlike form. The girl’s downcast stare, coupled with her exposed chest, underscores the powerimbalance between artist and sitter. Below the Surface An X-radiograph of this painting reveals a different image beneath the surface. It confirms that Gauguin first painted a horizontal landscape with riders on galloping horses before turning the canvas and repainting it with the composition of Poèmes Barbares. The pigments that the artist used for the underlying landscape are denser than those used on the surface layer. As a result, they block X-rays more effectively, leaving a brighter imprint on the radiograph. Gauguin was frequently short on supplies in Tahiti, so it’s possible he sacrificed one painting to create another. The landscape imagery of the underpainting relates to several pastoral scenes that Gauguin executed during this period—perhaps he felt comfortable abandoning one of his more common compositions to produce a work that marked the birth and death of his child. [x-radiograph image]