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Elena Damon
Dr. Kerry Boeye
AH-111-03
15 December 2014
Contextual Analysis of Woman of the Mango
While in Tahiti in 1892, Paul Gauguin painted Woman of the Mango (fig. 1). The
piece is vibrantly colored and it depicts a Tahitian woman holding a mango. She is the
focus of the painting, but she and the mango are to scale relative to each other. Her head
is facing the right side of the frame, but her body faces the left side, suggesting
movement. The fluid movement of her arms and her body suggest that she is dancing.
The background doesnt provide much context as to where she is, which indicates that the
painting is truly centered on the woman and the mango she is holding. However, there is
a small part of a mango tree coming into the frame in the top left corner, which provides
balance.
The style of the painting, as well as the subject matter, was influenced by the fact
that Gauguin was in Tahiti in 1892 when he painted it. His purpose of going to Tahiti was
to escape the European lifestyle and to capture the traditional culture. He found, however,
that many aspects of Tahitian culture had been tainted by French colonization. In his book
entitled Noa Noa, which he worked on while in Tahiti in 1892, Gauguin writes, It was
Europethe Europe which I had thought to shake offand that under the aggravating
circumstances of colonial snobbism, and the imitation, grotesque even to the point of
caricature, of our customs, fashions, vices, and absurdities of civilization (Gauguin
1957, 7). He decides to move to a small village called Mataiea and found a culture less

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influenced by colonization (Salvesen 2001, 42). Though the pure Tahitians and culture
were his main focus, he did capture the difference between those who had adopted
European customs and those who hadnt in his painting called When Will You Marry?
(fig. 2), which he painted while on the same trip in 1892. It depicts two girls, one of
whom is wearing traditional clothing while the other is wearing a European dress. He
intentionally puts these two figures together to capture the ambiguity of the two sides of
the culture coexisting (46). Gauguin was fascinated with the native women and he
became involved with many of them, often having them as his subjects in his paintings.
He sought to capture their exotic beauty without westernizing it like many artists of the
time had done. This is why Woman of the Mango is so important: the subjects natural
beauty and dress can therefore be attributed to his goal of portraying them in this manner.
She is also paired with a mango, which shows that Gauguin was also observant of the
indigenous crops and vegetation (44) and how dedicated he was to portraying them with
elements of their culture. There is no name that the viewer can associate with her, as the
title implies any woman, so one therefore associates her with Tahitian women in general.
Gauguins style of art can most effectively be described as Post-Impressionism,
and as a Post-Impressionist, Gauguin refuted the artistic values that were set up by the
Impressionists before him. There are many formal qualities in the painting that make it
characteristic of the time period, such as the colors he used, the way he painted, the
subject matter, and spatial distortions. The Impressionists started to experiment with
using bright colors, but the Post-Impressionists expanded on that by using vibrant colors
in an unnatural way. In Woman of the Mango, he uses a yellow-orange as the background,
but he did this not to represent the sky or area but to imitate the inside of a mango.

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Another reason why he chose to make the colors in the painting so bright and contrast so
much is to imitate the vibrant colors he saw in Tahiti. He writes, But the landscape with
its violent, pure colors dazzled and blinded me (Gauguin 1957, 30). He was
overwhelmed by the tropical colors of the island and he sought to bring them into his
work. In this painting, he uses yellow-orange and purple to exhibit the intense contrast he
observed. In 1888, Gauguin painted Vision After the Sermon (fig. 3), he makes the field
bright red. As opposed to depicting it realistically, he opts for a symbolic representation
of color (Salvesen 2001, 28), which further separates his style from the Impressionists.
Continuing with the aesthetic created by the Impressionists, Gauguins brushstrokes in
the painting are thick and obvious, which allows the colors he used in the piece to stand
out yet blend together. Vincent van Gogh, another post-Impressionist and one who
worked closely with Gauguin, also used the same style of painting in his work. One of his
paintings that embodies this stylistic choice is entitled Starry Night (fig. 4), in which he
uses exaggerated brushstrokes to create one cohesive image. Claude Monet, along with
many other Impressionists, painted scenes that celebrated modern life. His piece entitled
Gare Saint-Lazare (fig. 5), painted in 1877, depicts the train station and therefore
celebrates modernized Paris. Gauguin, however, detested urban scenery and became
fascinated with more primitive art, hence his journey to Tahiti in 1891 (39). One painting
of his that captures the primitive culture is Spirit of the Dead Watching, which depicts a
young Tahitian girl lying on a bed with a dark figure in the background. The title and
subject matter refers to the Tahitian folklore that the spirits of the dead rise at night to
torment those in the villages (Gauguin 1957, 55). It captures both a person and a belief of
a culture more primitive than his own, which is exactly what he wanted to paint. This

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painting, and many other Post-Impressionist works, also involves spatial distortions. The
girls hands and feet seem too large for her body, and the figure behind her seems too
small. Another artist during Gauguins time that experimented with perspective was Paul
Czanne. Still Life with Plaster Cupid (fig. 6), which he worked on from 1889-1899, has
one of the most confusing perceptions of space. The room seems to be slanting to the left,
the apple in the background is the same size as those in the foreground, and the table on
the left looks as if its falling over. This stylistic choice was also important in separating
them from Impressionists because they sought to depict the scene as realistically as
possible and stayed away from distorting it.
Woman of the Mango is a prime example of Paul Gauguins deviance from
Impressionism. Painted while he was in Tahiti, the piece captures how he observed Tahiti
and the Tahitian people by exhibiting the traditional style of the island. He did this
through the careful observation of primitive art, which he intended to imitate and build on
(Salvesen 2001, 38). Through the analysis of his art, other Post-Impressionists art, and
Impressionist pieces, and by analyzing his technique, his use of color, subject matter, and
space, one can fully grasp the extent to which his art exhibits Post-Impressionism. He
uses broad brushstrokes, incredibly vibrant color, untraditional subject matter, and plays
with the idea of spatial distortions. Another method of contextual analysis that could aid
in understanding this work of art is further analyzing the role that location and his
perception of Tahiti played in the depiction of the subject and his stylistic choices. This
way, one can understand how his work would have potentially been different had he
stayed in France and not journeyed to Tahiti.

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Bibliography
Gauguin, Paul. Noa Noa. Translated by O.F. Theis. New York: The Noonday Press,
1957.
Salvesen,Britt.Gauguin.Chicago:ArtInstituteofChicago,2001.

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Images

Figure 1: Paul Gauguin, Woman of the Mango, 1892,

72.7 x 44.5 cm, oil on canvas

Figure 2: Paul Gauguin, When Will You Marry?, 1892,

1.01 m x 77 cm, oil on canvas

Figure 3: Paul Gauguin, Vision After the Sermon,

1888, 73 x 92 cm, oil on canvas

Figure 4: Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889,

73.7 x 92.1 cm, oil on canvas

Figure 5: Claude Monet Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877,

75 x 104 cm, oil on canvas

Figure 6: Paul Czanne, Still Life with Plaster Cupid,

1894, 70.6 x 57.3 cm, oil on canvas