An even more powerful suggestion of this is given by the renowned painting Where Do We Come From? Where Are We? Where Are We Going?, which is a personal image of life Gauguin made during some difficult moments in his second trip to Tahiti. Particularly the left detail, entitled Where Are We Going? is of interest to us, as it indirectly shows the direction in which the life of the painter was heading. Unsurprisingly, it contains an idol. The fact that this scene, which is related to death and the last stage in life, is connected to the image of the idol shows that the soul of the painter and the image of the idol cannot be separated at this moment. We can see the omnipotent image of the idol, which has the highest position in the painting compared to all the other characters, as well as the most solid and confident posture. When he painted this work, Gauguin had severe health problems and was in a period immediately before his suicide attempt (Goldwater 48), so death was not at all a far thought to him, but a near escape. The reason why he included the idol in presumably an image of his own end of life trace us to the ever increasing power that the Tahitian god had in him, as it shredded piece by piece his civilized individualism, controlling him more and more as the time passed. 
Image:
Where Do We Come From? Where Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts