A young Tahitian woman is wrapped in a blue pareo with a gold star and lays on lemon-yellow sheets. Next to her bed, an elderly woman with her head covered clutches a newborn. A green halo surrounds the child's head, which is matched by a crown of light around the reclining woman's profile.
"Cows may be seen in the distance, indicating that the picture is set in a stable: welcome to Gauguin's Tahitian nativity scene! There are no Three Wise Men or Joseph in this picture, but the painter has sprinkled it with subtle references to the pictorial genre of the Nativity, an iconographic tradition whose first depictions date back to the middle of the second century (Priscilla's catacomb). This is corroborated by the canvas's title, Te tamari no atua, which translates as "The Birth of the Child of God."
Oil on canvas, 96 × 126 cm. Collection: New Pinakothek, Munich.
The outcome of an unethical connection. Paul Gauguin, 48, produced this painting in 1896 while his very (very) young lover Pau'ura, 14, was expecting a baby girl. Born around Christmas, the infant lived barely a few days. Three years later, Pau'ura gave birth to a boy named Émile. The presence of the adolescent may be seen in Gauguin's depiction of the parturient resting on the bed, as well as the painting's genuine topic. The infant in the backdrop is from another Bé Bé picture, Tahitian Nativity (Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg), which was produced not long before.
Divine and obscene. A green wing emerges from the shadow to the left of the canvas, indicating that the two ladies are under the protection of an angel. Gauguin, who practically assimilates himself to Christ at the end of his life (Self-portrait with Yellow Christ, 1891), incorporates both holy and profane elements. For example, this column on the left of the picture recalls the décor of the painter's house in the hamlet of Puna'auia, which had bamboo walls and a woven palm leaf roof.
An iconoclastic composition In Tahiti, the artist used a new technique to arrange the space of his picture, arranging the figures one after the other. Gauguin's characters are shown in many postures and motions, much as in a collage: face in profile, turned towards the observer, from behind, lying down, and so on. Wooden ornamental components (bedposts, beams, etc.) help to segment and organize the area by creating the illusion of depth.
Gauguin, the Mystic The painter, a superb Bible aficionado, returns to subjects from the New and Old Testaments, which were previously studied in Pont-Aven. More than a spiritual portrayal, Gauguin incorporates religious and Tahitian motifs. According to him, all religions and myths throughout the world are the same. In an 1897 article titled The Catholic Church and Modern Times, he emphasizes that divinity is a "unfathomable mystery" and that "God does not belong to the scholar, nor to the logician; he belongs to the poets, to the kingdom of dreams". .
Christmas Passion Gauguin was in bad health when he made this work, suffering from syphilis and eczema. A terrible moment that most likely led him back to the mutilation of his buddy Van Gogh on Christmas Eve in 1888. However, the artist was tormented by the end-of-year celebrations for other reasons, including yearning for his daughter Aline, who was born on December 25, 1877 and stayed in France (she died a few weeks later at the age of 19). After painting seven Nativities in 1896, Paul Gauguin returned to the topic in 1902 (a year before his death) with a sequence of works that resemble Turkish baths or harems. The inconspicuous cat on the bed represents the sexual energy in this context. The animal, the image of Lucifer before the Renaissance, might also refer to Titian's Venus of Urbino, but instead of the dog, a sign of loyalty.
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