Manao tupapau (She Thinks of the Ghost or The Ghost Thinks of Her) 1894 - 1895

Paul Gauguin created this monotype, Manao tupapau, at the end of the nineteenth century. The composition is dominated by the figure of a Tahitian woman reclining on a cloth. Her nakedness contrasts with the darkness behind her, creating a sense of vulnerability. The artwork operates on a visual tension between presence and absence. The background is rendered with muted, dreamlike colors, populated by spectral figures, hinting at a world beyond the tangible. Gauguin disrupts conventional perspective, flattening the space and challenging our perception of depth. Through his deliberate use of form, Gauguin engages with broader philosophical concerns about the intersection of the visible and invisible, the real and the imagined. The monotype becomes a space for questioning established meanings.