# The Call

- By: Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
- Date: 1902
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: Framed: 160.5 x 119 x 9.5 cm (63 3/16 x 46 7/8 x 3 3/4 in.); Unframed: 131.3 x 89.5 cm (51 11/16 x 35 1/4 in.)
- Culture: France, late 19th–early 20th century
- Credit line: Gift of the Hanna Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1943.392)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/1943.392/1943.392_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Painted on a remote island in Polynesia a year before the artist's death, The Call belongs to a series of late works that explore the mysteries of life and death. Two women stand with bare feet, as if on sacred ground. One woman gestures to someone outside the picture, perhaps responding to a "call" from fate or destiny. Gauguin realized his ambition of painting from memory and the imagination through such mysterious, dreamlike images.