Design for a Fan Featuring a Landscape and a Statue of the Goddess Hina

"Design for a Fan Featuring a Landscape and a Statue of the Goddess Hina" is a complex preparatory work created by Paul Gauguin French, 1848-1903, likely in the final years of his life. Classified as a painting, the piece employs a sophisticated blend of watercolor and gouache, enhanced by delicate touches of pen and black ink, all layered over traces of graphite. The artist utilized cream Japanese paper, which was pieced together before being laid down onto a cream wove paper support, demonstrating Gauguin's continued technical experimentation with exotic materials even late in his career.

This design, dating from 1900-1903, exemplifies Gauguin’s enduring fascination with Oceanic mythology and the integration of indigenous figures into idealized, flattened landscapes. Though created by a highly influential French artist, the subject matter is dominated by the statue of the Goddess Hina, a significant deity in Polynesian culture, reflecting the Symbolist tendency to explore non-Western religious themes and forms. The characteristic curved format of a fan was common among European artists of the late 19th century, allowing for decorative yet profound compositional studies.

The work is characteristic of Gauguin’s refined, synthetic style developed during his final years residing in the South Pacific. This study, while potentially intended for commercial decorative production, functions as a highly resolved independent painting. Preserved within the esteemed collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, Design for a Fan Featuring a Landscape and a Statue of the Goddess Hina remains an important document of the artist’s aesthetic vision. As many of Gauguin’s late works enter the public domain, high-quality reference prints have become widely accessible, allowing broader study of this influential period in Modern art.