Te raau rahi (The Big Tree)
Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
1891
- Medium
- Oil on jute canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- 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.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Kate L. Brewster
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
“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 (jute), is visible through the paint layer. Cheaper and more readily available than traditional canvas, this support material lends the work a rugged, organic texture.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
