Detail of Be in Love and You will be Happy by Gauguin in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, June 2010

Soyez amoureuses vous serez heureuses (Be In Love and You Will Be Happy)
French, 1889
Paul Gauguin, French, 1848–1903
France

Dimensions: 95 x 72 x 6.4 cm (37 3/8 x 28 3/8 x 2 1/2 in.)

Medium or Technique: Carved and painted linden wood

Classification: Sculpture
Type: Woodcarving

Catalogue Raisonné: Gray 076

Accession Number: 57.582

Carved and polychromed wood panel in original frame. "Soyez amoureuses vous serez heureuses" on arch amid figures and faces. Gauguin grasping hand of nude woman seated at left. Mourning female nude, cat and flowers at right.

Gauguin accorded great importance to his sculptures. His childhood memories of Peru, a trip to Martinique, and the African art he saw at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris stimulated his interest in "primitive" civilizations and prompted him to convey the same spontaneity and vigor ...in his own work. This relief was carved during one of Gauguin's immensely productive visits to Pont-Aven, in Brittany. He wrote that he considered it "the best and strangest thing I have ever done in sculpture. Gauguin (as monster) seizing the hand of a protesting woman and telling her: 'Be in love and you will be happy.'" Much about this sculpture foreshadows the art Gauguin created after he left France for the islands of the South Pacific.

Text from: www.mfa.org/collections/object/soyez-amoureuses-vous-sere...