The Siesta

The Siesta, dated 1892 and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, depicts Tahitian women resting during the heat of the day — a subject allowing Gauguin to paint horizontal figures in a domestic or outdoor setting without the explicit charge of the nude. The Met's holding of this work connects it to their broader Gauguin group representing his Tahitian period across multiple phases. The theme of rest and the body given over to stillness was central to his vision of Tahitian life as a reprieve from Western industrial time-discipline.

Horizontal figures in rest allow Gauguin to explore the relationship between the body and the ground plane without conventional spatial recession. He places the women close to the picture surface, their forms creating a decorative arrangement of colour and rhythm.