Gauguin’s 1892 painting Arii matamoe (The royal end) centres on the haunting and confounding image of a severed head presented on a white pillow. The complex scene is arranged in approximate quadrants: on the left, the severed head dominates the foreground and a carved ‘screen’ or room divider delineates a dark interior space. On the right, a patterned pink mat leads to a brighter realm outdoors where grieving figures gather at the threshold, one holding an axe, and tropical surrounds are described in saturated yellow and green.
This invented scene was motivated by two key events witnessed by the artist. The first was in Paris in 1888, where Gauguin attended the public execution by guillotine of the criminal Prado. Here, he made sketches of the guillotine and commented that he had attended to observe an act of ‘martyrdom’, as Prado maintained in a series of letters to the press that he was innocent. The second event was in June 1891, where Gauguin witnessed the funeral of Tahiti’s last king, Pōmare V. In Noa Noa, Gauguin’s account of his life in Tahiti, the artist commented that he thought of Pōmare's death as emblematic of the loss of Tahitian culture and traditions in the face of European colonisation.
While in reality Pōmare V’s body remained intact, and his funeral ceremonies were European and Protestant in tone, Gauguin may have painted his imagined version of a pre-colonial funeral to emphasise the ‘otherness’ of the Pacific for a French audience. In effect, Gauguin took a image from European art history – the severed head of John the Baptist held on a platter — and gave it a new and exotic setting. The artist may also have been alluding to Marquesan mortuary traditions in which the head was the site of mana, or spiritual power, and was preserved.
Inscribed, within the carved screen at top left, the words ‘arii’ meaning ‘noble’ and ‘matamoe’ meaning ‘sleeping eyes’; combine to imply death. However, Gauguin never spoke Tahitian or Marquesan to a fluent level, and his reference to cultural objects and traditions was opportunistic, therefore their context may have been lost to him.
On display nearby are several objects from the Marquesas Islands, of the type that inspired Gauguin’s invented palace. Similar in shape to the ‘platter’ on which Gauguin placed the king’s head, is a papahia or solid, block-like stool. Usually cut from a single piece of wood, they are used as a mortar for pounding breadfruit, plantains or taro. Meanwhile a small ivi po’o in the form of a tiki figure carved from human or animal bone, possibly represents a specific ancestral being. It bears a resemblance to the guardian figures Gauguin placed at the entrance of his palace, and adjacent to the right edge of his ‘platter’.
