1886 -1903 · Brittany, Tahiti, Marquesas and colonial gaze

Gauguin constructs his female figures in flat areas, contours and silences, from Brittany to Polynesia; their formal power must be read with the colonial projections and the power relations of the artist.

Paul Gauguin first represented Bretons, Parisians and relatives before making Polynesian women one of the central motifs of his work. In Brittany, headdresses, dresses and processions serve synthetism: simplified shapes, dark contours and autonomous colors. Having left for Tahiti in 1891 then settled in the Marquesas, he painted women sitting, standing, working or gathered in silent scenes. These images combine observation, photographs, Asian sculptures, Christianity, reinvented myths and European memories. They therefore do not constitute a transparent document on Tahitian society. Gauguin arrives in a French colony that is already profoundly transformed and projects onto women a personal idea of paradise, the primitive and desire. Several of the artist's relationships with very young Polynesian women make critical reading essential. The strength of the flat areas and silhouettes must therefore be looked at with the historical conditions of their production. The selection "Women of Paul Gauguin" notably compares Two Tahitian Women and Vahine no te tiare. His reading favors figures.

Gauguin's women are powerful pictorial constructions, but their silence also carries the weight of a European, masculine and colonial gaze.