Noa Noa, Paul Gaugin's Fragrant Land

Gauguin arrived in Tahiti in June, 1891. He would spend only eighteen months there, but in this period of time he produced fully one-sixth of his life’s output. He was able to use the striking people with their richly colored clothes and surroundings to express the ideas he had about primitivism and the use of symbols in art, as he had never been able to do in Pont-Aven or even Martinique.

Gauguin stayed only briefly in the European colony at Papeete; he soon moved out into the countryside, where he began to sketch both the people and the countryside. The only noteworthy painting he did of a European was a deathbed portrait he did of his young friend Aristide Suhas, a young English boy who died in March 1892. In Atiti, the boy looks like a prince. Like some of the paintings that Gauguin did of his own children, the painting reflects the painter’s affinity and affection for young people, so much more open and direct than adults, and in this respect closer to his primitive ideal.

One of the first paintings done after Gauguin arrived in Tahiti was Ia Orana Maria (We Hail Thee Mary). Expressing Gauguin’s original vision of Tahiti after his arrival, it shows a strong, loving Tahitian woman carrying her son on her shoulder, while other women and an angel bow in reverence. Contrasted to the sufferings the artist showed in his earlier religious paintings, this is a simple but powerful expression of hope.

Gauguin knew that he had little time to lose in getting what he wanted on canvas; his funds were limited, and he needed to contribute to the support of his children back in Europe. His first paintings were landscapes. The Little Valley, although undated, uses the same techniques as the Le Pouldu paintings. There are broad streaks of undifferentiated color representing the sky, background, and foreground. He even included some archetypal farmers and a cart, displaying the similarities between his new and his original inspiration. Haere mai venez! is another painting representative of this transition. The artist is not only interested in effect; he is actually including simple people doing things in an environment that interests him. He is also using the elements in his new environment to express a moment in time, rather than simply a feeling about a landscape. The woman in this painting clearly is chasing the pigs; the three figures are not simply unrelated elements as in his earlier works.

The painter was also tending to his own comforts in Tahiti. He had moved to a small house out in the countryside, and when Titi, the young woman who had accompanied him from Papeete, declined to stay, he acquired a thirteen-year-old vahine, or bride, named Teha’amana, who was offered to him on the usual condition that she would be permitted to return to her family after eight days if she so chose.

Te Raau Rahi (The Big Tree) shows that Gauguin could express his new surroundings in different ways. He uses the same techniques - broad simple swatches of color to represent the various parts of the painting and isolated figures scattered throughout the landscape. But the foliage on the trees is painted in exuberant detail. Different trees and shrubs have different types of foliage, and the greens vary throughout a well-balanced composition. In all these paintings, it is possible to see the artist trying different ways to apply his theories of color and symbolism in a new setting, determining how best to express what he sees.

By the end of 1891, Gauguin’s representational style was clearly evolving into one that reflected his view of Tahiti. He began painting flat, almost two-dimensional paintings with strong contours and a strictly limited color palette. An interesting feature of the paintings from this period is that, although they appear simple, their composition is based on ancient Roman, medieval Breton, and Asian reliefs that Gauguin had studied in Europe. The artist carefully planned his move away from largely landscape paintings to these primitive-seeming figural paintings, using the technical skills acquired in many years of training and study.

Beneath the Pandanaus Tree is from this period. The sections of the painting are indicated by strips of color, with the sky a lighter blue than the ocean, and the shade under the huge tree being much darker than the grass in the mid-ground. The painting contains two central figures interacting with one another, but peripheral animals and people are isolated. This painting also shows clearly its structural origin as a relief; significant objects appear at frequent intervals across the entire surface. The number of colors is limited. The bright orange and yellow clothed figures are startling against the natural orange and blues of the background. Only one face can be seen in the painting, and it is not a portrait, but almost a flat mask. The dog in the foreground is painted with almost no hint of three dimensions.

Early in 1892, Gauguin returned to Papeete. While there, Auguste Goupil, a solicitor and plantation owner, gave him a copy of Voyages aux îles du Grande-Océan, a book by Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout describing the cultural and religious practices of Tahiti as they had been in the 1830s. Even though this had been barely two generations before his visit, the culture described in the book had simply vanished; he Tahitians themselves no longer lived as the book described. The book gave him access to the culture that lay beneath the exotic surface It was this element that completed the vision Gauguin wanted to portray of the South Seas. Once he had identified all the elements, he abruptly abandoned the realistic, almost narrative pictures he had been painting. Symbolic images become the focal points of his paintings.

One of the first examples of this change is Women at the Riverside. Gauguin uses the huge tree and the river to represent the spiritual aspects of the lovely environment. The women are not a focal point, but they are also not out of place. They are integrated perfectly into their environment; almost a part of the vegetation. Colors are softer, but richer. The trees are almost bursts of color, different from European trees, but emphasizing the atmosphere of the place rather than using botanical forms.

Gauguin knew that he was achieving his aesthetic ideal. He sent his first shipment of paintings to Paris, wrote his friends about his achievement, and assured his wife Mette that“what I am doing here has never been achieved by anyone before me and is totally unknown in France. I hope that this news makes the public favorably disposed towards me.” It was at this time that Gauguin began to give his paintings Tahitian names, rather than the French ones he had been using since he first arrived. For example, Gauguin wrote the name Te poi poi in the lower right hand corner of the painting usually called Morning.

At this time, Gauguin began working on a story based on his travels. He called it Noa Noa, or fragrant land; this narrative is often used to interpret his paintings, but any interpretations should be done with a critical eye, as this appears to be more of a spiritual and aesthetic journey rather than a factual narrative. In the story, Gauguin describes his life among Tahitian natives, even claiming that he was initiated into their religious life. The accumulated information that Gauguin had gathered was beginning to show up in his paintings.

Parahi Te Marae (There lies the Temple) shows both the real and fictive aspects of Gauguin’s work of this period. The foreground of this painting contains luminous, showy flowers in mauves and oranges against an almost black background. This is separated from the center of the painting by a Chinese-style lattice fence. The rest of the painting is a rising hill of yellow, set off from the ocean in the background. The temple of the title is the black idol at the right side of the yellow hill. At the time Gauguin was painting there were no temples, no stone idols, and no Chinese lattice fences in Tahiti. However, Moerenhout’s book describes the Easter Island statues which look a great deal like this one, and Gauguin was always open to inspiration from a number of sources.

Gauguin also did several sculptures based on the same concepts that underlie There lies the Temple. A number of the statues that he completed at this time depict either Hina or Te Fatu, the most important Tahitian deities in Gauguin’s view. In Noa Noa, he gives a summary of Tahitian theology. Ta’aora represented the masculine elements: the mind, the sun, and light. Hina was the feminine moon goddess, who governed fertility. Te Fatu was the spirit of fecundity and the earth. Hina was the most important of these gods for Gauguin’s work, although she is not an important figure in traditional Maohi mythology. His Cylinder with the goddess Hina is carved from temanu wood and is decorated with paint and gold plate. Maohi gods were rarely represented pictorially; Gauguin must have used models from Indian reliefs, specifically one from the temple at Boribudur, to compose this piece.

Parau Na Te Varua Ino (Words of the Devil) deals with the existence of demons. The naked woman in the foreground does not see the figure behind her; she seems astonished by the reaction of someone else. The interesting thing about this picture is that there are no Maohi myths of women stalked by demons. Rather, their myths deal with men stalked by female demons. However, the European audiences that Gauguin was trying to attract were more familiar with female victims, as described in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and the contemporary painting Faire peur.

Merahi Metua No Tehamana (Tehamana has Many Ancestors), painted shortly before the artist’s return to Paris, is an impressive portrait of a woman, Although the subject shares the name of Gauguin’s vahine, the painting does not resemble contemporary pictures of her. Instead, it is the portrait of an archetypal Polynesian princess, strong and dignified. She wears a missionary dress, holds a palm frond like a scepter, and wears flowers in her hair. The figures on the sculpture in the background are Marquesan, and the written characters come from Easter Island. This painting once again shows how Gauguin blended cultural reality with his artistic vision to produce a unique result.

The most famous paintings Gauguin completed in Tahiti are a number of portraits of two women crouching or sitting as though working in a garden. These figures fill the canvas from side to side, and overlap one another, never touching. The faces are Maohi, rather than an individual portrait. The colors are mostly rich but subdued secondary tones, although the clothes are done in strong primary colors. The painting is laid out with no sharp angles, but rather living curves and arcs. The first of these paintings were Women on the Beach, and the very similar Parau api. Gauguin painted Women on the Beach and sold it in Tahiti to finance his trip home. He repeated the same picture and sent it to an exhibition in Denmark, calling it Parau api (What News?).

Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) is the largest and most important of these two-figure paintings. The woman in the foreground, dressed in a bright skirt and blouse, appears to be listening to the older woman dressed in a subdued pink missionary dress, who is seated on the ground behind her. This painting also contains most of the other elements of Gauguin’s style at this time. The entire picture consists of swathes of color: the dark green of the mountains, the soft green of the grasslands, and the gold of the meadow where the two women are sitting. The two figures form an almost architectural central presence. The expression on the women’s faces is enigmatic, and Gauguin has given the work a similarly enigmatic name. With these later works, Gauguin is clearly inviting his audience to put their own interpretation on his work. He merely offers the opportunity to comment.

At this time, associates of Gauguin were helping to arrange publicity for his return. He had set up two exclusive exhibitions, and agreed to participate in three others. He knew that a success at this time was critical to his future in France. He had planned to publish Noa Noa as part of his pre-exhibit publicity, but the work was not ready for publication. The text required editing, and Gauguin had scattered watercolors, drawings, and photographs throughout the body of the text, so reproduction was beyond the technical capabilities of printers at the time. Charles Morice volunteered to edit the manuscript. In fact, Gauguin did not have time to prepare woodcuts of his illustrations until March 1894, and it would be 1895 before the work could be released.

Gauguin returned to Paris in August 1893. His first priority was an exclusive show at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris. He had to produce an exhaustive descriptive catalogue, as Noa Noa would not be available to familiarize viewers with the spiritual and cultural themes underlying these works. Charles Morice wrote the foreword for the catalogue. His descriptions of the archetypal patterns expressed in Gauguin’s work are rhapsodic and lyrical; expressing the exotic power and erotic undertones with which the artist had imbued his work. Heated discussions of Gauguin’s work soon absorbed the Parisian art community.

Despite the publicity, Gauguin’s exhibit was not a financial success. Only eleven paintings sold. But he was the talk of Paris. He arranged a studio exhibition in December 1894 and wrote articles encouraging the general public to come see his work. He displayed the leftover works from the Durand-Ruel exhibitions, added previously unseen works of his own, and exhibited works from his personal collection by artist friends such as Cézanne and van Gogh. The studio was decorated with exotic furniture; Gauguin greeted his guests as though they were in a gallery, offered readings from Noa Noa and lectured on his voyages.

Although Gauguin had done at least one well-known woodcut series before he left for Tahiti, the Noa Noa woodcuts are his most well-known works using this technique. These woodcuts replaced the original illustrations Gauguin had done for his journal, representing the Tahitian myths that Gauguin had gathered and used for the underlying metaphors of his paintings. He reworked each woodblock several times, carrying out the last revision under the direction of Louis Roy, who actually did the published prints.

One of the exquisite woodblocks from this series is L’Univer est créé (The Creation of the Universe). It takes places in the world between organic and non-organic life, and shows how the world was recreated after the great flood. In the background, a great sea rampages. The foreground is dominated by a great fish representing the god of the sea who had unleashed the flood. Only those humans who could escape to the“toa marama” (islands or mountain tops) survived. The picture contains representations of two humans, but there are more eerie creatures from Maohi creation myths. These almost surreal hybrid beings include the head and shoulders emerging from the ground on the left and the skull-like head that dominates the right side of the picture. This is clearly an unsafe, haunted world.

Gauguin painted a superb self-portrait at this time, called Self-Portrait with Palette. It shows the artist wearing a wool coat and fur hat with ear flaps, for his studio had no heat. This painting was dedicated to Charles Morice, something that Gauguin did rarely. It indicates how much the painter felt he owed his young friend. It was now becoming apparent that although Gauguin was an aesthetic success with the Paris intelligentia, he had failed in his goal to achieve financial security. His paintings and prints did not sell as he had hoped. When Gauguin left Paris for the second time in 1895, it was because he did not want to be in Paris any more. Gauguin first went to New Zealand, where he studied the Maohi culture in more detail than he had the opportunity to do before. He went on to Tahiti in the fall.

Gauguin painted and produced prints during his second sojourn in Tahiti. From 1896 to 1898, he produced a series called Suite Vollard, named for the Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard. Most of these prints were reproductions of paintings he had done during his initial trip, but with added elements. For example, Te arii vahine - Opoi (Reclining Queen) embeds a three-dimensional representation of a woman surrounded by two-dimensional objects. Even the tree is presented as a two-dimensional object; note the artist’s initials prominently displayed among the leaves.

Gauguin’s religious imagery was coalescing into a singular view at this time. Te atua (The gods) combines religious figures from several of Gauguin’s earlier works into one harmonious universe. The figures of the Madonna and Child and Saint Joseph at the left and right sides of the print are taken from Nuit de Nöel, painted in 1894, probably in Brittany. But the center of the painting is filled with representations of exotic creatures including a snake, a peacock, and what appears to be a water god. Filling the arch over all the other figures is the head of a giant demon. Gauguin created different versions of this print; he illuminated different parts of the composition in each version.

Gauguin’s health had been difficult throughout all his voyages. He had experienced hemorrhages in 1892, and the cold and poverty he had endured in Paris during his return there had made him miserable. But it was not until the death of his daughter Aline in 1897 from pneumonia that his own health began to fail. He had been very fond of the daughter named for his mother, and her death precipitated his plunge into a deep depression that was not lightened by his realization that the Tahiti he had longed for was retreating with each step toward modernization. He attempted suicide early in 1898 by taking arsenic, which resulted in permanent damage to his health.

The post-1895 paintings have an underlying flavor of melancholy that none of the paintings from his first trip do. They are often done in darker hues. But there is a purity about many of these pictures, a clarity of vision at the same time enigmatic. In 1899 he painted Two Tahitian Women. There is no light background in this picture, no inviting beach or meadow, no palm trees. But the women are fully realized, clearly portraits of individuals, and there are no extraneous elements in the picture.

Many of the artistic elements that had always appealed to Gauguin in Polynesia were not Tahitian, but rather Marquesan. The culture of these islands provided the inspiration for many of the sacred and supernatural elements scattered throughout his works. In 1901 he left Tahiti for the last time, taking up residence on the island of Hiva Noa, in the Marquesas, perhaps hoping to find a reality where his visions were true. He painted one of his last pictures, The Sacrifice, there. The composition of the painting is much like that of Two Tahitian Women. It also contains two female figures, one holding a bouquet of flowers, but unlike the earlier painting, the second woman is nursing a baby, not presenting flowers. The faces of the women are also more clearly Oriental than those in Two Tahitian Women. Additionally, the second woman in The Sacrifice appears to be bowing in homage. The background in the later painting is more like his earlier paintings. There is color applied in horizontal bands, perhaps representing a river and meadows.

One of the last paintings that Gauguin did is Christmas Night (Blessing of the Oxen). It shows the range of sources the artist used throughout his life, and extends his vision of Christianity from some of his earliest paintings into one of his last. The oxen are based on an Egyptian relief, the women in the picture wear Breton caps, and the figures in the shrine are from a Buddhist shrine in Java. Gauguin, the splendid savage, integrated them all.

Gauguin died on the island of Hiva Oa on May 8, 1903, after a long period of illness, and was buried in the Catholic cemetery there.