We Shall Not Go to the Market Today

Five women sit in a row on a green bench, flat as figures in an ancient frieze, beneath a yellow sky: Gauguin's Ta Matete blends Tahiti with the art of ancient Egypt.

The story behind the painting

Paul Gauguin painted this oil on canvas in 1892, during his first stay in Polynesia, between 1891 and 1893. Its Tahitian title is Ta Matete; in French it is known as Le Marché, The Market, while the English title used here is We Shall Not Go to the Market Today. In his search for the primitive, Gauguin based the composition on an Egyptian wall painting that he kept as a photograph. The canvas measures 73 by 92 centimetres and is now in the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland. According to the French Wikipedia source, the five seated women are thought to be women who sold themselves to Western visitors at the market in Papeete.

What to look for

The picture is built in three horizontal bands. In front, five dark-haired women in long, colourful dresses sit on a green bench, talking among themselves, except the one in the middle, who looks straight ahead. On the right, another Tahitian woman stands and turns her head toward them; she is cut off by the edge, a device linked to photography, as Degas had used before. Her foot, seen from above, plays with double perspective, and her detailed pareu reflects Japanese prints. Behind, two men walk among trees, one holding two large fish, and the sea glimmers through lush vegetation. The sky is yellow, the tree trunks blue.

Meaning and intent

The figures have no volume or movement; they look cut out and almost flat against the background. That flatness is deliberate. The Egyptian influence shows in heads and legs drawn in profile while the torsos face front, and in the two figures at the back, which seem taken from Egyptian reliefs. Outlines are sharply drawn, and colours are bright and arbitrary rather than true to nature. The light comes from the upper left, as the shadows reveal. By mixing a Tahitian scene with Egyptian, Japanese and photographic sources, Gauguin created an image that is less a record of daily life than a carefully composed vision.

Legacy

Ta Matete belongs to the Kunstmuseum Basel. It is classed as a Post-Impressionist genre painting from Gauguin's first Polynesian period. The French source draws on Marcial Olivar's 1971 book of one hundred masterpieces of painting. One point is worth noting for readers: the English title, We Shall Not Go to the Market Today, differs from the shorter French title Le Marché, and the sources available here do not explain the English wording. What remains clear is the painting's frieze-like calm, its bold colours, and the questions it raises about how Gauguin looked at the women of Tahiti.

豆知識

Oil on canvas, 1892, painted during Gauguin's first stay in Polynesia (1891-1893).
73 x 92 cm, in the Kunstmuseum Basel.
Inspired by an Egyptian wall painting Gauguin kept as a photograph.
The sky is yellow and the tree trunks blue.

Wikipedia · Wikidata