Paul Gauguin - Portrait of a Young Woman, Vaite. Jeanne Goupil 1896
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Portrait of a Young Woman, Vaite. Jeanne Goupil 1896
75x65cm oil/canvas
Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen, Denmark
The image is only being used for informational and educational purposes
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From Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen:
The picture was painted on Tahiti and shows a French girl, Jeanne Goupil, who was the daughter of the lawyer Auguste Goupil, who had settled down with his family on a plantation near Papeete. Vaïte was her Tahitian name, and her father had ordered a portrait of her from Gauguin.
There is a penetrating Symbolistic atmosphere about the picture: the colours are strong, the wallpaper pattern and the mask-like face almost hypnotize the observer standing before the picture. As a portrait of a young girl the picture is extremely enigmatic. The depiction of the girl Vaïte is quite subordinated to the picture’s overall ornamental character. Gauguin has framed the girl and her dress with a blue contour line which helps to insist on the significance of line and surface rather than volume or a body. The sphere of dreams is characteristic of Gauguin’s pictorial world, and in a way parallels his idea of a dream-world far from European civilization.