We shall not go to market today (1892)

One of Gauguin’s favourite devices was the juxtaposition of two contrasting motifs, one from everyday life and the other from the religious, mystic or supernatural world. The purpose of this device was to suggest a character’s inner personality or to depict a recently experienced vision or state of mind. While he was in Tahiti Gauguin sought other ways to achieve the same effect. He was particularly fascinated by Egyptian imagery and studied photographs of the pharaoh’s tombs.

He believed that an additional psychological dimension could be implied without incorporating a second motif if his figures were placed within Egyptian-style friezes. After all Egyptian art was so alien to European culture that it provoked a sense of the supernatural.

“We shall not go to market today” is Gauguin’s attempt to emphasise the indolence of gossiping Tahitian women through the use of Egyptian imagery. Instead of emphasising their instinctively idle natures by inserting a second mystical motif he uses a style of painting which implies some deeper psychological dimension.

However, Gauguin was uncertain whether he had achieved the desired effect. He was not convinced that his figure’s static poses sufficiently expressed the inner reality of their hopeless lethargy. Although he did not divide his canvass between two distinct motifs he felt the need to provide an additional clue by inserting the contrasting figures of two labourers sweating in the background.

Gauguin disliked this painting. He appreciated that a composition which expressed inaction through a markedly static pose might appear unduly stilted. He was also dissatisfied with the poses of the women who appear entirely divorced from their surroundings. Shortly after he completed this picture Gauguin abandoned his attempt to incorporate Egyptian imagery within his art.

Image Source: The Yorck Project

Joyeusete (1892)

Gauguin explored the theory of synaesthesia in Tahiti. It fitted his own ideas about man’s unity with nature. Modern civilisation had preached that man possesses a soul belonging to another dimension but Gauguin’s observation of primitive people lead him to believe that human existence is just another aspect of the natural environment.

According to the theory of synaesthesia, a work of art should unite and not divide artistic genres. A visual painting should imply sound and movement as if it were also a dance or a drama. This theory appealed to Gauguin who saw an analogy with his own belief that man and nature should be perceived as a single entity and not as distinct forms of existence. In “Joyeuseté” he makes an ambitious attempt to combine both these ideas.


Two Tahitian girls kneel in a decorative Tahitian landscape. The abstract patterns created by the various planes of glowing colours blend the figures into their natural environment. The girls are as much a part of the forest as the tree which provides them with shade and the dog which forages in the foreground. The girl on the left is playing a flute and three semi-naked figures perform a tribal dance in the background. The graceful lines which delineate the contrasting blocks of colour, the sloping haunch of the dog, and the sensual curves of the plants and branches are intended to provoke a subconscious harmony and rhythm similar to that inspired by music.

Gauguin therefore combines the concept of man’s unity with nature, and the theory that a painting should unite diverse artistic genres.

Image source: The Yorck Project

Near the Sea (1892)

Even after he had spent several months in Tahiti, Gauguin’s figures still lacked individual characteristics. He seems to have taken the view that one Tahitian girl looked very much like another. In his letters back home he talked of exotic mystical creatures whose very gender is often unclear. He even referred to the “sensuous animal grace of the androgyne”.

Gauguin now believed that human life was an inextricable part of the natural cycle of existence and that a deeper understanding could only be achieved through a complete disregard of gender, class or age. If man was as much a part of nature as the plants and trees it followed that every defining human characteristic was merely a temporary phenomenon of an ever-changing world. If this were the case then human beings did not have a detachable soul capable of surviving in an alternative dimension.

Gauguin explores these theories in “Near the Sea” . He depicts two Tahitian girls in an abstract landscape. The girl in the foreground lowers the towel around her waste as if preparing to submit to some pagan nymph while the second girl raises her hands in a gesture of worship before plunging into the depths.

The figures of the two girls are derived from Gauguin’s personal collection of pagan Celtic symbols. Like most pagan races, the Celts attributed supernatural powers to rivers, forests, mountains and streams. Gauguin uses a rich decorative pattern to incorporate the girls as an integral part of the landscape. The rhythm of the abstract forms is intended to provoke a sub-conscious reaction. Gauguin believed that art should be more than a mere visual experience. The impact of a canvass should inspire all the senses. In the words of Edgar Allen Poe: "A poet should see with his ear".

Image Source: The Yorck Project

Brooding Woman (1891)

After his first few weeks in Tahiti, Gauguin moved to a hut in the jungle approximately 20 miles from the capital Papeete. He took a Tahitian lover, Tahua, and teased her mercilessly. He frequently compared her to a print of Manet’s Olympia, the iconic naked prostitute whose portrait hanged in his studio. It seems that Gauguin preferred the fantasy of a brazan courtesan to the charms of a simple peasant girl.

Gauguin found it difficult to paint during his first few months, claiming that he needed a “gestation period” in order to familiarise himself with his new surroundings. He initially felt overwhelmed by the Tahitian landscape which he described as “capricious” and “incapable of definition”. He also confessed to fits of lethargy and depression.

In his letters back home he portrayed Tahiti as an idyllic paradise. He claimed that idleness was endemic because the Tahitians were too pure and noble to waste their lives in pointless strife. In doing so he hoped to win a new following amongst those who dreamed of a distant paradise while enduring the daily grind of industrial France. However Tahiti, like anywhere else, had its own problems of poverty, alcoholism and disease.

In “Brooding Woman” Gauguin projects his own melancholic mood onto the Tahitian girl who sits cross-legged in the foreground. The girl’s simplified form lacks any distinguishing features. Gauguin is not interested in her individual personality. To him she represents a type. Her hut is empty apart from the half-eaten food which looms large in the foreground. Its open door reveals a glimpse of the landscape beyond. Her apathy is in sharp contrast to the alert dog and mounted peasant in the background. Once again Gauguin combines two contrasting motifs in an unnatural dreamlike setting.

Image Source: The Yorck Project

Orana Maria (1891)

Gauguin, now a minor celebrity, received an official reception when he arrived in Tahiti. Even the governor turned out to greet him. Gauguin, the artistic rebel, revelled in his role as an ambassador from home. Armed with a letter of recommendation he made the most of his privileges, just like any other European colonist.

Although Gauguin was widely admired as an intrepid adventurer, several of his contemporaries questioned why he felt the need to travel so far. The pointillist Paul Signac considered that Gauguin must be a buffoon if he thought that he could paint black in the north and blue in the south. After all if Gauguin believed in an art of the imagination then surely he had no need to travel half-way around the world.



Despite his professed interest in the native people and their culture, Gauguin ruthlessly exploited them as a novel addition to his old established themes. In “Orana Maria (Hail Mary)” the Breton landscape and peasants of his earlier pictures are replaced by semi-naked Tahitian women in a tropical setting. He imposes Christian motifs like some zealous missionary, placing halos over the Madonna and Child which contribute to the visionary atmosphere created by the unnatural colours and incorrect perspective. The winged angel in the bushes has been recycled from his earlier picture of Jacob wrestling with an angel. On that occasion the pious female figures were Breton peasants.

In “Orana Maria” Gauguin automatically assumes that the native Tahitians have willingly abandoned their own religion for Christianity. In doing so he demonstrates the same arrogance as the colonial officials who imposed their own concepts of civilisation. Far from being a primitivist, Gauguin is merely another colonist.

“Orana Maria” is nonetheless a delightfully colourful and decorative canvass. At this stage Gauguin was more concerned with producing exotic pictures for the European market than with investigating genuine Tahitian culture.

Image Source: The Yorck Project

La Belle Angele (1889)

Gauguin became an enthusiastic member of the symbolist movement while living in Paris. The symbolists were the artistic rebels of their day, challenging conventional beliefs through their dress and behaviour. They naturally attracted attention and thrived on their notoriety. By attaching himself to this movement, Gauguin got himself noticed and received critical acclaim.

A fellow symbolist Albert Aurier, an art journalist for the Mercure de France, stated that Gauguin’s paintings possessed the five principal characteristics required by a work of art since they were ideative, symbolic, synthetic, subjective and decorative. Gauguin felt vindicated. He decided to capitalise on his success by travelling to the French colony of Tahiti. He believed that he could better develop his primitivist style there and win more admirers by despatching exotic canvasses to a fascinated public.

Gauguin was flattered by the praise he received from symbolist writers such as Mallarmé and Verlaine. However, they did not genuinely share his passion for a primitive and visionary style of art. Indeed many symbolists were merely dandies seeking attention. Gauguin later implied that symbolism was an inadequate response to the harshness of life. A few symbolists had promised to accompany Gauguin on his journey of discovery but none actually did.

Shortly before Gauguin departed for Tahiti, he auctioned thirty canvasses and sold all but one. Edgar Degas, the famous impressionist, bought La Belle Angèle. Gauguin’s association with the symbolists had proved extremely profitable. However he was not prepared to compromise his own artistic integrity and by leaving a flourishing career in Paris for the uncertainty of the South Seas, Gauguin demonstrated the sincerity of his own artistic vocation.

In "La Belle Angèle" Gauguin depicts a Breton peasant girl against a decorative background in an unnaturally stiff pose with heavily rouged cheeks and sharp narrow eyes. Her image is juxtaposed with a pagan idol from which she is separated by a heavy circular line.

The painting is a typical Gauguin canvass of the time. He achieves a memorable image by combining two apparently contrasting motifs, thus implying that the respectable peasant girl remains dominated by her primitive instincts.

Image Source: The Yorck Project

The Yellow Christ (1889)

Gauguin prolonged his stay with the Schuffeneckers for several months during which he exhibited with a group of twenty artists known as “Les Vingt”. However, his paintings did not win wider critical acclaim. Although he could easily tolerate jibes from malicious journalists, he was deeply hurt by criticism from Camille Pissarro whose pointillist style had influenced his own artistic development.

Pisarro believed that art should be at the vanguard of civilisation, propagating knowledge and rational thought. He considered that Gauguin’s primitivism was backward, mystical and superstitious. Worse of all he accused Gauguin of being a fake without any true artistic vocation. To him Gauguin was merely attempting to carve out a profitable niche by recycling tired religious themes in a sensationalist manner.



Pissarro was particularly critical of Yellow Christ” (1889) in which Gauguin creates a vision of his own personal crucifixion witnessed by the Breton peasant women who kneel at his feet. The harsh glare of the unnaturally yellow tones creates a nightmarish atmosphere, but Gauguin appears totally relaxed as he smugly hangs on the cross.

Gauguin’s huge ego is apparent in “Yellow Christ”. He not only compares himself to Christ but also implies that he too deserves to be worshiped. He compares his status as an artist with the creative force of a deity and asserts that he is being maliciously persecuted by lesser beings. Such bold statements were an open invitation to ridicule.

In “Yellow Christ” Gauguin, regarded by many as a crafty fake, claims the status of a misunderstood genius.

Image source: The Yorck Project