1897, Paul Gauguin, Te Rerioa (The Dream) -- Courtauld Gallery (London)
From the museum label: Paul Gauguin painted this striking work a few years after settling in Tahiti, a French colony in the southern Pacific, and only weeks after Nevermore. It shows two women watching over a sleeping child in a room decorated with elaborate wood reliefs. The figures do not communicate, creating a sense of mystery. Gauguin meant the subject to be unclear. He titled the painting Te Rerioa (meaning 'dream' or 'nightmare' in Tahitian), writing to a friend: 'everything is dream in this canvas, whether it be the child, the mother, the horseman on the road, or the dream of the painter. All of this has nothing to do with painting, some will say. Who knows? Maybe not'.
The exoticising representation of Polynesia was intended to appeal to a white European audience, perpetuating the fantasy of a natural paradise on the other side of the world.
1897, Paul Gauguin, Te Rerioa (The Dream) -- Courtauld Gallery (London)
From the museum label: Paul Gauguin painted this striking work a few years after settling in Tahiti, a French colony in the southern Pacific, and only weeks after Nevermore. It shows two women watching over a sleeping child in a room decorated with elaborate wood reliefs. The figures do not communicate, creating a sense of mystery. Gauguin meant the subject to be unclear. He titled the painting Te Rerioa (meaning 'dream' or 'nightmare' in Tahitian), writing to a friend: 'everything is dream in this canvas, whether it be the child, the mother, the horseman on the road, or the dream of the painter. All of this has nothing to do with painting, some will say. Who knows? Maybe not'.
The exoticising representation of Polynesia was intended to appeal to a white European audience, perpetuating the fantasy of a natural paradise on the other side of the world.