Nevermore, Paul Gauguin (1897)
Paul Gauguin painted Nevermore while living in Tahiti, an island in the southern Pacific colonised by France. Intended for a white European male audience, this image of a reclining nude belongs to a long artistic tradition. To the familiar theme however, Gauguin added a sense of exoticism and of unease. The young woman is not at rest but anxiously aware of the two figures behind her, who may be evil spirits. For modern viewers, her youth is the most disconcerting aspect. She is sometimes identified as Paul Gauguin's 15-year-old companion Pahura.
The painting's title associates the bird on the ledge with Edgar Allan Poe's poem ‘The Raven’. In it, a poet, driven mad by the death of his lover, hears a raven endlessly repeating ‘nevermore’.
