In this self-portrait, Gauguin portrayed himself as both saint and tempter in Eden.
Gauguin wrote: "No one is good, no one is evil; everyone is both, in the same way and in different ways. I wish to love, and I cannot. I wish not to love, and I cannot. You drag your double along with you, and yet the two contrive to get on together. I have been good sometimes; I do not congratulate myself because of it. I have been evil often; I do not repent it."
