Te raau rahi (The Big Tree)
1891
Medium
Oil on jute canvas
Dimensions
72.5 × 91.5 cm (28 9/16 × 36 in.); Framed: 96.6 × 115.6 × 11.5 cm (38 × 45 1/2 × 4 1/2 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
111062
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
“Everything in the landscape blinded and dazzled me,” wrote Paul Gauguin of his first months in Tahiti. Here, he showcased the island’s variety of bountiful fruit trees, including a thick-trunked, violet hotu at left; spindly mango and coconut trees; and three short banana plants with lush, splayed leaves. In the foreground, a man uses a stick to crack a coconut and a family rests in the grass with a sleeping dog beside them. The painting’s coarsely woven canvas, made of a fibrous plant matter (...
About the Artist
Paul Gauguin · 1848–1903
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French Post-Impressionist painter whose bold experiments with color, form, and subject matter made him one of the most influential figures in the transition from 19th-century art to modernism. His rejection of European civilization for the perceived authenticity of 'primitive' cultures established an archetype of artistic exile that continues to resonate. Gauguin's ...