Where Do We Come From What Are We Where Are We Going
1898 · Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Boston
Gauguin thought he was dying and meant this to be his last work, reading right to left from a sleeping infant to an old woman.
★ 8.5
The Art canon
Sourced and hung.
Every work chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Browse all 704 works or filter by movement, subject, place, and artist.
Yellow Christ
1889 · Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Three Breton women in white caps kneel at a wooden cross in an autumn field, everything flattened into blocks of color like stained glass.
★ 7.2
Spirit of the Dead Watching
1892 · Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
A girl lies face down and frightened while a hooded figure sits behind her. Gauguin said his Tahitian companion was afraid of the dark.
★ 7.1
In the Vanilla Grove, Man and Horse
1891 · Guggenheim, New York City
A man and a white horse in a Tahitian grove, painted on Gauguin's first stay, flat and warm and looking for a paradise.
★ 5.2
Tahitian Mountains
1893 · Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis
Green and rose slopes flattened into bold shapes, with rather less interest in what the island actually looked like than in the color.
★ 5.2