Nevermore (Никогда)

Gauguin painted this in Tahiti in February 1897, six years into the escape he had made from Europe to what he imagined was an untouched paradise. What he actually found was an island worn down by decades of French colonial rule, and that disappointment seeps into the picture. A Tahitian woman lies stretched across the bed, not quite asleep, listening. Behind her two figures murmur, and on the sill sits a dark bird. In the top corner Gauguin lettered the word Nevermore, borrowed from Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven, which had been recited at his farewell party before he left France. He was careful to say this was not Poe's raven exactly, but a bird of the devil, keeping watch. Notice the woman's wide open eye. She hears the two voices behind her and holds still.