• Hermaphroditism
“With the suppleness of an animal and the graceful litheness of an androgyne he walked a few paces in advance of me. And it seemed to me that I saw incarnated in him, palpitating and living, all the magnificent plant-life which surrounded us. From in him, through him there became disengaged and emanated a powerful perfume of beauty…
… On Tahiti the breezes from forest and see strengthen the lungs, they broaden the shoulders and hips, Neither then men nor the women are sheltered from the rays of the sun nor the pebbles of the seashore. Together they engage in the same tasks with the same activity or the same indolence. There is something virile in the women and something feminine in the men.”
Paul Gauguin, Noa Noa
Throughout Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings, beautiful androgynous creatures entice the viewers and add to the “Lure of the Exotic” found in his art. Revived by the Symbolist artists of the late nineteenth-century, the concept of Hermaphroditism (men and women with analogous sex organs/body parts) has ancient mythological and Biblical roots, the most relevant being the creation of Eve in Genesis (Walther 49.) According to the Old Testament, after creating Adam to maintain the earth, God decided to provide him with a companion. In order to do this, God put Adam in a deep sleep, during which time he removed one of Adams rib and with it, creates Eve. Upon waking up Adam said:
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman’
for she was taken out of man.”
Genesis 2:23
Based on the origins of her creation, it is extremely appropriate for Gauguin to also make the sex of his Eves ambiguous, as both she and the androgynous figures of Tahiti were extremely fascinating and almost mythical to him. Also, while Adam was not created from another person, but instead the dust of the earth, Gauguin’s Eves and other Tahitian subjects are depicted as being one with the earth, reflecting what Gauguin considered to be a “primitive” time before the onslaught of “modern” civilzation.
•Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
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“This world which perhaps neither Cuvier or a botanist would be able to recognize, could be a Paradise only I could have sketched.”
Gauguin, in a response to August Strindberg
Throughout many Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings, he incorporates large, whimsical, fruiting-bearing trees that exist only in the mind and on the canvas of the artist. Reflecting his Eden theme, Gauguin sought out to create his own version of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as he felt that it should not be viewed in the same light as other trees found in nature. According to Genesis, after Adam was placed on Earth, “… the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you surely will die” (Genesis 2:16). It was only after Eve was tempted by the serpent to try the fruit from this tree that she gave in, and supposedly encouraged Adam to do so too. This first transgression on the part of Adam and Eve is what Judeo-Christian dogma cites as leading to the “Fall of Man,” and as punishment from their actions they not allowed to eat from another Biblical tree, the Tree of Life and Eat, which allowed them to be immortal, and were also banned from Eden.
As Gauguin changed the role of Eve in his art, he also changed the role of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Rather than shame Adam and Eve with their nakedness and curse them with the Godly knowledge of good and evil, this tree, like Eve, is portrayed as a source of life and wisdom. It represents Eden without the terrible implications of the “Fall,” where man and woman can walk around naked and be knowledgeable about themselves and their own mortality as well.
• Nudity
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“Among peoples that go naked, as among animals, the difference between the sexes is less accentuated than in our climates. Thanks to our cinctures and corsets we have succeeded in making an artificial being out of woman. She is an anomaly and Nature herself, obedient to the laws of heredity, aids us in complicating and enervating her. We carefully keep her in a state of nervous weakness and muscular inferiority, and in guarding her from fatigue, we take away from her possibilities of development. Thus modeled on a bizarre ideal of slenderness to which, strangely enough, we continue to adhere, our women having nothing in common with us, and this, perhaps may not be without grave moral and social disadvantages.”
Paul Gauguin, Noa Noa
As is depicted in Gauguin’s Tahitian artwork, nudity plays a major role in the Biblical story of Genesis. When Adam and Eve were first created, they lived side by side in bliss, completely unaware of their nudity. “ The Bible reads: “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25). It is not until Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit that they become aware of their naked bodies and are filled with shame: they make clothes to cover themselves, and then hide from God in disgrace.
Through his art however, Gauguin, rejects the concept of the Biblical “Fall” and the idea that consciousness of our bodies should in anyway be connected with sin. While the extent to which Gauguin may be considered a true feminist is arguable, his comments in the passage above, regarding nudity and the female body were extremely true of 19th century Europe, and any Western Judeo-Christian society of the time. Clothes were used as both symbols of propriety and as tools of further separating, and in some cases oppressing, genders. By allowing his Eves to be naked once again, he allowing her to return to the Eden in which she belongs, and where he desires to go.