Green Lion Holiday in French Polynesia Paul Gauguin left France
for self-imposed exile in French Polynesia. During his stay in
Tahiti he made sketches of animals and plants using them to
populate the canvas. The Tahitian forests and mountains he
encountered provided a noble landscape, which fitted his need to
express an alternative reality to challenge the materialism of
the West. His style developed from Impressionism towards a
highly personal brand of Symbolism, to combine and contrast an
idealised vision of primitive Polynesian culture with the
sceptical pessimism of an educated European. Where Do We Come
From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? The painting, created in
Tahiti, is an accentuation of Gauguin's trailblazing post-
impressionistic style. Gauguin was inspired by the stories he
was told by the indigenous Tahitians. however it so happened
they only produced sculptures to scale, so when it came to
adding symbols in to his paintings, Gauguin found it convenient
to borrow from Christian iconography, or