Portraits by Paul Gauguin (1891-1900) 

This painting is said to depict Gauguin’s mistress who is meant to represent Vaïraümati,the most beautiful of all women derived from the Polynesian myth of Areoi. She is chosen to mate with a male sun god to found a new race. Despite Tahitian colonization, Gauguin still displayed Tahiti in pre-modern times.

This painting is a straightforward depiction of island life in Tahiti, emphasized with bright unrealistic colors. Two women prepare to swim in the ocean, while a man is spear fishing nearby. This is ultimately the lifestyle Gauguin strived for hoping that his art would be inspired by the Tahitian’s simplicity of life. Despite Gauguin’s interest in the ancient life of the Tahitians, most of it had been replaced and colonized by the time he arrived in the late 1800s.

Another depiction of the myths of this ancient Tahitian race. This painting is meant to represent the ancient quarrel between the female spirit of the moon vs. the male spirit of the earth. The moon requests the Earth to grant humans eternal life yet the Earth denies her request. Gauguin’s use of bold rich colors, a lot more heavily saturated than real life, illustrates the appreciation of island life and nature.

Gauguin often drew parallels between Tahiti and the Garden of Eden, which explains why several of his paintings of Tahitian women are illustrations of “Eve-like” women. While still drawing parallels to traditional ideas like reclining nudes, Gauguin managed to capture the exotic and rich culture of the Tahitian people although he exaggerated just how primitive their ideals were.

This painting depicts a group of women worshiping the goddess Hina. Reflective of his older work After the Sermon, 1888, Gauguin uses a tree to split the canvas in half. Despite the current colonization of Tahiti during Gauguin’s stay, he reflects to Mata Mua (In Olden Times), a nostalgic recollection of pre-civilization.

Arearea which translates into “Joyousness” is another depiction of Gauguin’s embracing of the spiritual world and how he viewed the religious, cultural, lifestyle of the Tahitian people ultimately as a refuge from the social constraints of the European and western world. Gauguin splits the canvas with a tree, which is a reoccurring tactic in his works. The use of exaggerated colors was another tactic I believe Gauguin used to illustrate emotion and give a sense of warmth and lushness to the Tahitian lands which he considered paradise.

A darker look into Gauguin’s obsession with the French Polynesian culture in his late years is through one of his most extraordinary works Tahitian Woman with Evil Spirit. It is an oil transfer drawing, a hybrid medium of a drawing and a print, created by Gauguin in 1899 during his stay in Tahiti. Gauguin invented the process of oil transferring a year before this painting which is a revolutionary process that transformed and morphed his work mysteriously and beautifully.

Gauguin strove to broaden even his own perspective. He began embracing new ideas of beauty. And given his emphasis of sexual nature, he very often found that new beauty in the women of Tahiti. Gauguin drew parallels between these two realms of beauty by portraying this Tahitian woman dressed in classical European dress.