Landscape with a Cottage; Profile of Boy, Profile of Man, Two Women in a Landscape, and Five Other Studies [verso] 1884 - 1888

This drawing by Paul Gauguin presents a rustic landscape with a cottage and several studies of figures in profile. Note the repeated motif of the profile view, a symbol echoing across millennia from ancient coins to Renaissance portraiture. The profile, detached yet observant, allows a glimpse into the sitter's character without the direct confrontation of a frontal gaze. Consider the Egyptian pharaohs depicted in profile on temple walls, embodying power and authority. This convention reappears in Gauguin’s sketches, though stripped of its regal context. The profile, in this sense, taps into a collective memory, evoking a sense of timelessness and continuity. Gauguin uses this motif to capture fleeting impressions and subconscious connections between people and their environment. It is as though he intuits how the act of observing and representing the human form carries echoes of our shared past. This connects us to a deeper, almost primordial understanding of human identity.