Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Gauguin had been a student at the Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, just outside Orléans, from the age of eleven to the age of sixteen. His studies there included a class in Catholic liturgy; the teacher for this class was the Bishop of Orléans, Félix-Antoine-Philibert Dupanloup. Dupanloup had devised his own catechism for students to lead them toward proper spiritual reflections on the nature of life. The three fundamental questions in this catechism were "where does humanity come from?" "where is it going to?", and "how does humanity proceed?" Although in later life Gauguin was vociferously anticlerical, these questions from Dupanloup's catechism had lodged in his mind, and "where?" became the key question that Gauguin asked in his art. Looking for a society more simple and elemental than that of his native France, Gauguin left for Tahiti in 1891. In addition to several other paintings that express his highly individualistic mythology, he completed this painting in 1897. During the process of creating this painting, Gauguin experienced several difficult events in his personal life. He suffered from medical conditions including eczema, syphilis, and conjunctivitis. He faced financial challenges, and going into debt. He was also informed about the death of his daughter from Copenhagen. From one of many letters to his friend, Daniel de Monfreid, Gauguin disclosed his plan to commit suicide in December 1897. == Details and analysis ==

title in the upper left corner: '''''D'où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous'''. The inscription the artist wrote on his canvas has no question mark, no dash, and all words are capitalized. In the upper right corner, he signed and dated the painting: P. Gauguin / 1897''. == Style ==

The painting is an accentuation of Gauguin's trailblazing Post-Impressionistic style; his art stressed the vivid use of colors and thick brushstrokes, while it aimed to convey an emotional or expressionistic strength. It emerged in conjunction with other avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, including Cubism and Fauvism. == Reception and provenance ==

In 1898, Gauguin sent the painting to Georges-Daniel de Monfreid in Paris. Monfreid passed it to Ambroise Vollard along with eight other thematically related pictures shipped earlier. They went on view at the Galerie Vollard from November 17 to December 10, 1898. The exhibition was a success, although ''D'où Venons Nous?'' received mixed reviews. unsuccessfully tried to raise funds to purchase the painting on behalf of France. purchased the painting from Vollard for 2,500 francs in 1901. Subsequently, Frizeau sold the painting around 1913 to Galerie Barbazanges, which sold it before 1920 to the Norwegian ship owner and art collector . He sold the painting via Alfred Gold in 1935, and it was bought by the Marie Harriman Gallery in New York City in 1936. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, acquired it from the Marie Harriman Gallery on 16 April 1936. == Critics and Gauguin ==

Critics thought of Paul Gauguin as one of the major artists of the time, but they were unsure about the artist's intentions in this work. Thadée Natanson of La Revue Blanche expressed confusion over its meaning, describing it as "obscure". The critic André Fontainas of the Mercure de France acknowledged grudging respect for the work but thought the allegory would be impenetrable without the inscription, and compared the painting to Inter artes et naturam (Between Art and Nature) of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. Although Gauguin appreciated the works of Puvis, he wanted to differentiate his works from “the great master of decorative painting”. He explained to Fontainas that the objectives of Puvis's works were predetermined and could be conveyed in words; he believed his works consist of a great "pictorial language of feelings". Gauguin believed that his paintings had abstract, inexplicable qualities that could not be expressed in literary terms. ==References and sources==

References Sources • Andersen, Wayne V. “Gauguin and a Peruvian Mummy.” Burlington Magazine 109, no. 769 (1967): 238–43. • Boime, Albert (2008). Revelation of Modernism: Responses to the Cultural Crisis in Fin-de-Siécle. University of Missouri Press, • Boyle-Turner, Caroline. Current Issues in 19th-Century Art. Zwolle: Amsterdam: Waanders; Van Gogh Museum, 2007. • Dorra, Henri. The Symbolism of Paul Gauguin: Erotica, Exotica, and the Great Dilemmas of Humanity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. • Gayford, Martin. (2006). The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles, London: Penguin Books, . • Mathews, Nancy Mowll (2001). Paul Gauguin: An Erotic Life. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, • Rousseau, Theodore. Gauguin: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Sculpture. Art Institute of Chicago, 1959. • Shackelford, George T. M., Frèches-Thory, Claire, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gauguin Tahiti. Boston, MA: MFA Publications, 2004. • Stuckey, Charles. "Gauguin Inside Art" in Eric M. Zafran, ed., ''Gauguin's Nirvana: Painters at Le Pouldu 1889-90''. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford in association with Yale University Press, 2001, . • Thomson, Belinda (1987). Gauguin. London: Thames and Hudson. . ==Further reading==