Paul Gauguin - Young Girl Dreaming. Study of a Child Asleep 1881

Young Girl Dreaming. Study of a Child Asleep 1881
Young Girl Dreaming. Study of a Child Asleep
1881 60x74cm oil/canvas
Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen, Denmark

« previous picture | 1880s Gauguin Paintings | next picture »

From Ordrupgaard Collection, Copenhagen:
In his early work Gauguin mainly used his close surroundings, with pictures of the family in and around the home, as motifs. The dreaming child seen here is his daughter Aline, who was born in 1877. Yet it is not the trivialities of everyday life that are the main concern; it is the big existential questions about life, dreaming and death that are Gauguin’s themes.
On the wallpaper in the background we see an early example of his interest in giving the decoration in the painting a symbolic meaning. Here it is the bird’s hovering movements to and from the nest that can be associated for example with the child’s dream or the artist’s thoughts. The amputated, stiffened doll in a jester’s costume hanging on the bed in the foreground, with its central placing and its strong expression, is also an essential, meaningful detail in the picture. It gives the painting an eerie, almost ominous aspect which provides a perspective for the child’s dream, and is repeated time and time again in Gauguin’s later work.