So, how were Gauguin's exhibitions received? What did he think about his Polynesian paintings, specifically his Tahitian Eves? Read for yourself in the following passage from Gauguin's Diverses Choses, 1896-98.
"At my Tahiti exhibition at Durand-Ruel (in spite of the boredom of having to speak about myself, I do it here to explain my Tahitian art since its famous for being incomprehensible): at this exhibition the crowds and then the critics howled in front of these paintings, which weren’t sufficiently ventilated. No cherished perspective: only narrow alleys, alleys…The air was stifling such as in an impending cataclysm, etc. Probably, the ignorance of perspective, lack of a point of view, especially incomprehension of the laws of nature. Well then, I want to defend myself.
Would they prefer that I present an imaginary Tahiti, similar to the Parisian countryside, in proper lines, raked? And, this product of deep thought and deductive logic, drawn from me and not from materialistic theories made by Parisian bourgeois, in their eyes becomes a serious error, that of not screaming along with the crowd. One of them cries: “Do you understand Symbolism? Personally I don’t understand it at all,” Another, witty one (my God, how much wit in Paris!) writes; “To amuse your children, send them to the Gauguin exhibition; they will have fun looking at the colored images, representing quadrumanous females lying on the cloth of a billiard table, all of it adorned with the words of the local language,” etc.
These people don’t understand anything! Is it too simple for the overly witty and refined Parisians?
The island— a mountain above the horizon of the sea, surrounded by a narrow strip of land on the coral reefs. Geographic information. Thick is the shadow that falls from the large tree backed against the mountain, from the large tree which masks the formidable cave. The depth of the woods, thick as well.
Any receding perspective would be nonsense. Eager to suggest a luxurious and disordered nature, a tropical sun that inflames everything around it, I had to give my characters a suitable environment.
This is truly life outdoors, but it is intimate, in the thickets, the shady streams, these women whispering in an immense palace decorated by nature itself with all the richness that Tahiti contains. Whence all these fabulous colors, this enflamed— but softened, silent— air.
“But none of these exists!”
“Yes, it exists, as the equivalent of the grandeur depth, and mystery of Tahiti when it must be expressed in one square meter of canvas.”
This Tahitian Eve is very subtle, very intelligent in her naiveté. Hiding in the depths of their childlike eyes, the enigma remains incommunicable for me.
It is no longer a little, pretty Rarahu* listening to a beautiful romance by Pierre Loti while playing the guitar (also by pretty Pierre Loti). It is Eve after the fall, still able to walk naked without being immodest, maintaining all her animal beauty as on the first day. Her loins stay solid— maternity couldn’t disfigure her: the feet of the quadrumane! Fine. Like Eve, her body has retained an animal grace. But her head has progressed with evolution, thought has developed subtlety, love has imprinted an ironic smile on her lips and, naively, she looks into her memory for the reason for the past, for the present. Enigmatically, she looks at you.
“It’s intangible,” it has been said.
Fine, I agree."
*Rarahu is the vahiné of the European visitor to Tahiti in Pierre Loti’s novel “The Marriage of Loti,” which was entitled “Rarahu”.