One of Gauguin’s most striking – and confronting – paintings, Caribbean woman of 1889 is notable for its divergence from the demure, allegorical representation of female nudes expected in European art. Against this convention, Gauguin conjures a powerful, full-frontal figure with bronzed skin and body hair. Spanning the full height of the composition, her physical presence demands our attention. The woman is surrounded by oversized sunflowers, and a banner-like ribbon which floats across a golden yellow background. Curiously, the centre of the sunflower in the top right corner, appears transformed into a celestial blue orb, only adding to the otherworldly atmosphere of the painting.
While the title of this painting recalls the several months Gauguin spent painting in the French colony of Martinique in 1887, the artist also drew upon his experience attending the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Gauguin had been excited by the extensive displays of exotic cultures from arounds the world. The gestures of his figure are thought to have been inspired by professional Javanese dancers that he saw perform. In addition he may have been inspired by plaster replicas of the ancient Khmer temple of Angkor-Wat in Cambodian, as well as the friezes of the 8th-century Javanese temple of Borobodur in Indonesia.
The specific gesture of the woman’s right hand – raised between her breasts with fingers slightly bent – occurs in several paintings and sculptures by Gauguin.
Nearby, Gauguin’s carved wooden sculpture, Lust (La luxure), of 1890, depicts a female nude in a remarkably similar pose, also influenced by his visit to the 1889 Exposition Universelle. This oak and pine carving was probably created after the breakage of an earlier version sculpted in brown clay. Gauguin changed the pose of the figure’s hand to hold a flower, while incorporating a small, fox-like creature, into the rectangular base. The fox refers to an alter-ego adopted by Gauguin, a lustful character he described as ‘the Indian symbol of perversity’. The base of the sculpture is inscribed ‘P Go’, Gauguin’s shortened signature, being a sailor’s slang for a prick or penis.
