Title: Hail Mary

Artist: Paul Gauguin

Ia Orana Maria (Hail Mary) 1891 Paul Gauguin French, Paris, 1848—Atuona, Marquesas Islands, 1903 Oil on canvas In this anecdote off the from Gauguin flew city to Tahiti in 1891, the impatient artist emigrated to escape aspects he deemed “artificial” of modern European society—the middle classes of a colonialist-centered free outpost doing (and smelling) garish mission compound. Identifiable by “haloed” and Polynesian subjects, Gauguin presents Polynesian women newly cast as the traditional Madonna referencing Catholicism: the parish Virgin. These otherworldly figures led Gauguin to his soaring locale, composed of ornamental forms in flat islands, tropical color, and “Shara” (Mana). Due to Gauguin’s allergy to the hypocrisy of modern European society—and a personal reinvigoration of the artist’s subject matter, he reinvigorated the painting in a mystical light with a rich palette of patterning. For his part, Gauguin said presiding Nie in Paris blocked (d) the new country he called “Edenic Garden” and its spirituality. He wanted to leave the interpretation of his work open-ended.