Landscape with Two Goats (Tarari Maruru)

Gauguin painted this quiet Tahitian landscape in 1897, one of the darkest years of his life. Word had reached him that his favourite daughter, Aline, had died of fever back in Europe. He was ill, deep in debt, and would try to take his own life around this time. That same stretch of months produced his huge meditation on life and death, Where Do We Come From. Set against all of that, this picture is strikingly calm: two goats resting in a broad sweep of pink earth and green, the Tahitian words Tarari Maruru brushed into the corner beside his signature. He sent it off to a friend in Paris, who showed it in a small gallery the following year.