"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.

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".

"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

"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

"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.

"In a loose sense, every Tahitian woman whom Gauguin painted is an Eve and the Paradise story from Genesis is his central image"

Thomas Buser, from his article Gauguin's Religion

"The first thing that strikes me about this painting is that the colors are not as bright or vivid as I expected, especially of a piece during Gauguin's Tahitian period. This might be a result of the painting aging and fading, or perhaps Gauguin did not mean for this piece to be striking in terms of color. Another possibility is that as he was known for his relationship with color, Gauguin's prints may be reproduced in a more vivid fashion than they were originally created, perhaps to emphasize their importance.

Although the colors are more muted than expected, Gauguin's choice of color is still very interesting. The land and sky are dominated by light whimsical colors. The beach is pink, the land is a light green, the sky is light blue, and there is a yellow flower in the woman's sarong. In the water, however, there is a mix of dark brown, red, dark green, and dark blue, which might be an abstract reflection of the colors of the jungle behind the woman. Also, as you move from background to foreground, the brushstrokes become less blended and more visible� displaying the "primitive" techniques that Gauguin preferred."

-Alexis Tucker

"Then a life filled to the full with happiness began. Happiness and work rose up together with the sun, radiant like it. The gold of Tehura's face flooded the interior of our hut and the landscape round about with joy and light. She no longer studied me, and I no longer studied her. She no longer concealed her love from me, and I no longer spoke to her of my love. We lived, both of us, in perfect simplicity.
How good it was in the monring to seek refreshment in the nearest brook, as did, I imagine, the first man and the first woman in Paradise."

Paul Gauguin, Noa Noa

Eve's status as the first woman makes her the ultimate symbol of the purity and innocence coupled with the 'primitive' culture that Gauguin seeks. While this is displayed in his artwork, it is also directly reflective of his actual life, where he turned to young girls to not only be his lovers, but also as muses for creating his Tahitian Eves. In his first visit to Tahiti, Gauguin took a local girl named Tehura (or Teha'amana) to be his vahine (wife) at her parents' offer. Deemed to be around thirteen years of age in Tahitian measurements (about eighteen to twenty according to European calculations,) Tehura was Gauguin's living Eve, and the model for several of his works. Perhaps one of the most famous images of Tehura is in Manao Tupapau (Spirit of the Dead Watching) 1892. Apparently, after returning home one night, Gauguin found his young bride clinging to her bed, frightened that Tupapau (the same spirit in Words of the Devil) was watching her as she slept (Harrison 34). Captivated by this moment, Gauguin painted Tehura in this position, one that would often be seen as unflattering by Western standards. As a reverse image of Olympia, the Eve of this painting is closing her body off and is rejecting the idea of woman as a temptress rather than purposely display it for the world. Instead, Eve is a scared girl in a vulnerable and "primitive" animal-like state.


While Gauguin captured his true-to-life Eve in what he believed to be "primitive" poses, he also literally created her from primitive materials (reminiscent of God creating Adam out of dust) such as wood, his favorite material for sculpting because of the primitive techniques used, and the visibility of the artist's hand in the final product (Rodolphe). In Gauguin's wooden sculpture of his wife, Teha'amana 1892, there are two distinct female images. On one side is Tehura's face, while on the other is an image of a Tahitian Eve. Charles F. Stuckey provides one explanation for this dual representation. He writes: "If we interpret the image of Eve as a side view inside the head of Teha'Amana, she expresses her thoughts as those of the fantasies of a temptress" (Behr 27). While this is a plausible opinion, in following Gauguin's ideal image of Eve, it is more likely that this representation of her is a symbol of how he felt for Tehura. His ideal Eve was a pure, primitive, untouched soul like his young wife, and as a result, she was extremely tempting to him. Therefore, by having a cultural and sexual relationship with her, she metaphorically and physically became his entryway into a primitive world.

"Yes, indeed, the savages have taught many things to the man of an old civilization; these ignorant men have taught him much in the art of living and happiness. Above all, they have taught me to know myself better; they have told me the deepest truth. Was this thy secret, thou mysterious world? Oh mysterious world of all light, thou hast made a light shine within me, and I have grown in admiration of thy antique beauty, which is the immemorial youth of nature. I have become better for having understood and having loved thy human soul� a flower which has ceased to bloom and whose fragrance no one henceforth will breathe."

Paul Gauguin, Noa Noa

The passage above comes from the end of Paul Gauguin's travel journal in Tahiti entitled Noa Noa. Literally meaning "fragrant, fragrant", the phrase noa noa is introduced to the reader at the end of the opening chapter when Gauguin describes the intoxicating scent of the Tahitian women upon his arrival. "A mingled perfume," he writes, "half animal, half vegetable emanated from them; the perfume of their blood and of the gardeniasâ€� tiaréâ€� which all wore in their hair. 'Téiné merahi noa noa (now very fragrant),' [the women] said." (Gauguin 8).


During his first visit to Tahiti (1891-3), Gauguin documented his experiences on this two-year journey from beginning to end, even starting with his initial disappointment at the overwhelming presence of French civilization in Polynesia. Upon viewing the queen of the island at her husband's funeral, however, Gauguin is taken by her "Maori charm" (Gauguin 6) marking the beginning of his passionate love affair with Tahiti. Gauguin not only recorded his personal encounters with the land, the people, and specifically the women, but he also made his journal a sort of anthropological report: providing first-hand accounts of their customs, religious beliefs and cultural history. In one section, Gauguin even discusses Tahitian astronomy, listing mythical histories behind the names of the stars, and the Polynesian version of Genesis, even complete with detailed accounts of whom originally begat who, as is provided in the Old Testament of the Bible.


While it is important to remember that Noa Noa is a journal and lacks the objectivity needed for a truly comprehensive and factual account of nineteenth century Tahiti, this bias gives us a personal window into what Gauguin saw through his eyes. The juxtaposition of sketches mixed with his own words allowed Gauguin to provide us with the Tahiti that he wanted to share with the world. One of the most interesting artistic elements of his original manuscript was his series of ten woodcuts that he intended to publish as a part of the journal. Drawn to the "primitive" techniques and materials used in this artform, Gauguin even used unsophisticated tools to achieve a new, less traditional print (Chapman, GroveArt.com). Unfortunately, as Noa Noa was considered "a bit much for stuffy 1900 Europe" (Gauguin ix), Gauguin had to publish the journal himself and omit the woodcuts. In newer versions of Noa Noa, however, the woodcuts have been included alongside his words and several of his original sketches.


In all, perhaps the most valuable thing to come out of Gauguin's accounts in Noa Noa is an intimate look into the motive behind many of his great works of art. Frequent themes in the journal are also found throughout his works such as Polynesian mythical culture, Tahitian women, androgynous figures, sexual freedom, and the beauty of this Paradise on Earth. In the spirit of a true artist, Gauguin even has his journal come full circle as he ends the book with the flower that his wife once wore behind her ear, now wilted on her knee, a symbol of the end of a journey that opened with an introduction to the flowered, fragrant women observed at the start, who would eventually become the inspiration for such an important period in his life and career.

(The picture above is my sad attempt at creating a Gauguin-like digital woodcut)

Enjoy :)

Special thanks to Jessica Gheiler and to my writing group, Rachel Power and Audrey Burgess, for their help with this essay!

I. Paintings

• Gauguin, Paul. Human Miseries. Art Museum Ordrupgard, Copenhagen, Denmark.

• Gauguin, Paul. Eve: Don't Listen to the Liar. (Bréton Eve) Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute. San Antonio, Texas

• Gauguin, Paul. Exotic Eve. Collection Particulière, Paris, France.

• Gauguin, Paul. Delicious Earth. Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki, Japan

• Gauguin, Paul. Words of the Devil. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

• Gauguin, Paul. Where do we come from? What are we doing? Where are we going? 1897. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts

II. Additional Art

•16th Century Inca Mummy, Musée de l'Homme, Paris

III. Literature

• Amishai-Maisels, Ziva. "Gauguin's 'Philosophical Eve.'" The Burlington Magazine 115 (1973)

• Barskaya, Anna, Asya Kantor-Gukovskaya, and Marina Bessonova. Paul Gauguin: Mysterious Affinities. St. Petersburg, Russia: Aurora Art Publishers, 1995.

• Barskaya, Anna, Asya Kantor-Gukovskaya, and Marina Bessonova. Paul Gauguin in Soviet Museums. St. Petersburg, Russia: Aurora Art Publishers, 1988.

• Behr, Solange de. et al.Gauguin: the Group of 20 and the Libre Esthétique. [Liège? : Musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain?, 1994?]

• De Graveline, Frédérique. Paul Gauguin: La Vie, La Technique, L'oeuvre Peint. Lausanne, France: Edita, 1988.

• Gauguin, Paul. Noa Noa. Trans. O.F. Theis. San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 1994.

• Harrison, Charles, Francis Frascina, and Perry, Gill. Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: the Early Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.

• Rapetti, Rodolphe. "Paul Gauguin." The Grove Dictionary of Art Online. Oxford University Press. 2004. 30 March 2005.< http://www.groveart.com>.

• Prather, Marla and Charles F. Stuckey, eds. Gauguin: A Retrospective. New York: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 1987.

• Walther, Ingo F. Paul. Gauguin 1848-1903: The Primitive Sophisticate. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2004.

• Wise, Susan. Paul Gauguin: His life and his paintings. Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1980.

"The woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"

Genesis 3:3

It is not until Gauguin leaves Tahiti and returns in 1895, however, that he finally reached the climax of his relationship with his symbolic Eve as she not only stands, but has her arms outstretched to the sky, guiding Gauguin in his ultimate search for his primitive ideal. In one of the culminating pieces of his career, Where do we come from? What are we doing? Where are we going? 1897, Gauguin posed all of the existential questions that brought him to Tahiti in the first place and continued to plague him into his final days. In this painting, Gauguin drew together a range of former paintings about Eve onto one canvas in order to truly address these questions through his ideal, but not wholly accurate, vision of Tahiti as a dwelling place for his Eve. In analyzing this large work, which contains many other artistic allusions and cultural references, the three major sections of this painting each contain a different stage in Gauguin's relationship with Eve, his guiding force.

Although it would seem sensible to start from Where do we come from?, the rightmost section of the canvas, if read from left to right, however, the painting narrates Gauguin's evolving relationship with Eve, her development from a into a strong standing woman, and her role as the source of all life and the symbol for a new beginning. Starting on the left side of the painting, Gauguin chose a reproduction of his pre-Tahitian work, Breton Eve, as the first symbol for Where are we going?. Here, in the form of an old woman, holding her head and crouching into her naked body, she is representing the Judeo-Christian school of thought and Gauguin's world pre-Tahiti. She represents his past, and where his Eves actually came from; from assuming the guilt and shame of humanity.


As we move right towards the What are we doing? section, there is an androgynous figure, reaching up and picking fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Aside from the obvious direct connection to Eden and the tasting of the forbidden fruit, the fluctuating sexuality of this tree-picker (in another version, he is depicted as a woman) is a reference to Gauguin's attraction to androgyny in his models and the ancient concept of Hermaphroditism (related to the Biblical story of how Eve was created from the rib of Adam) (Walther 49). With his androgynous tree-picker as the major focal point of the painting, Gauguin is highlighting Eve's most important role as the original source of life and knowledge, which would not have come without the Fall. She is finally standing completely erect and is actively acquiring knowledge and distributing it to those around her (such as the child eating alone) According to Gauguin, the Fall was extremely important to man as without it, we would not be here, and the world would be void of questioning, as is represented by the pondering couple and this existential work as a whole. Eve's height symbolizes the high point in the timeline of humanity when we first developed our sense of self, and because of her, were able to stand up on our own and take control of our lives.


Finally, on the far right, in the Where do we come from? section, is a baby who is open and looking around, a complete reversal of the closed-in decrepit Eve on the left. This baby is the manifestation of the new beginning that Eve ultimately represented for Gauguin. Although he created this painting at an extremely low point in his life when he was depressed and suicidal (Walther 77-78), he was still reaching towards Eve for a last grasp at hope and inspiration although his multiple attempts at a new beginning in new environments ultimately failed for him. It is through Eve's physical, postural evolution in Tahiti that Gauguin represents his desire to break away from the restrictions of Judeo-Christian Europe, and attempt to spiritual terms with himself.

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."

Genesis 2:15

After arriving in Tahiti, it seemed that Gauguin had been led astray on his unremitting quest for paradise. Unfortunately, his ideal image of Eden-on-Earth been corrupted by the urbanization of French colonization. After retreating from the capital city of Papeete, however, Gauguin found a less modernized world in which he eventually immersed himself and returned to his painting. As Gauguin represented Eve in Tahiti, he continued to detach her image from the Biblical concept of the "Fall". For him, there never was a "Fall" in this sense, as he had a positive view of Eve as the source of life and truth, rather than the herald of sin and corruption to mankind. In Gauguin's piece Delicious Earth 1892, Eve is presented as a Tahitian woman in what appears to be a traditional Temptation painting. Seeming unsure of herself as she looks away from the winged lizard (taking the place of the serpent), Eve is still reminiscent of Gauguin's earlier Westernized Eves; in fact, she takes on a very similar pose to his Exotic Eve. Instead of the stronger, guiltless Eves that we see in Gauguin's later Tahitian works, as Ziva Amishai-Maisels writes in her article "Gauguin's 'Philosophical Eve'," in this painting, Gauguin has "superimposed his own inhibitions and guilty conscience on the guiltless sexual freedom of the Tahitians" (Amishai-Maisels 373). This is evidence that Gauguin has not completely broken away from the Western school of thought since his Eve still has a traditional, Western image despite the fact that she is relocated in Tahiti. It is not until he learns to integrate the symbolic image of Eve with Tahitian culture, that her posture continues to straighten, and Gauguin can find his link to this "primitive" world.

Although Gauguin's Eve in Delicious Earth seems to have similar qualities and features of a Western Eve (despite the fact that she is Tahitian), in Words of the Devil in 1892, Gauguin succeeds in better incorporating her into his new Tahitian surroundings, and as a result she takes on a new more inquisitive pose, showing that perhaps she to take on the role as Gauguin's guide. As these two paintings were painted in the same year, it is unknown, which came first, however, based on Gauguin's stylistic development, it seems natural that Words of the Devil proceeded Delicious Earth. In Words of the Devil, Eve is being watched by Tupapau, a Tahitian symbol of death. Turning away from him, Eve does not succumb to his evil, and retains her status as the symbol and source of life rather than just being the original sinner. Despite the fact that she still seems slightly hesitant in this painting, this Eve is fully integrated into Tahitian culture by more than just her skin color. This mixing of religions with respect to the fact that she is joined by a traditional Tahitian image while taking on the symbol of fertility and life, allows Eve to become more of the "Philosophical" or idealistic Eve that Gauguin sought out, rather than a religious one (Amishai-Maisels 381). In her book, Paul Gauguin in Soviet Museums, author Anna Barskaya writes: "this natural, animal grace of the Tahitian Eve, who as [Gauguin] said, can go about naked even after the Fall and not seem shameless, is certainly among the highest achievements in Gauguin's Polynesian painting" (Barsakaya 34). While his Eves are stunning achievements, it is the fact that Gauguin omits all negative implications of "the Fall" which makes his pieces so revolutionary and important. This rejection of an exclusively Judeo-Christian body of thought is central to Gauguin's quest to return to a pure world, because it is not until he can rid himself of the concept of sin, that his Eves will truly be free to stand upright and expose him to the paradise of a "primitive" world.

"Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living."

Genesis 3:20

After leaving Brittany and returning to Paris in 1889, a new Eve literally rises during Gauguin's stay in France, and takes a new form in Gauguin's work, serving as a link from his time in Brittany to his future stay in Tahiti. This transition period between these two foreign locales is a crucial period of development for Eve in Gauguin's works. Rather than remaining seated, as in the previous two paintings, Eve eventually stands for the first time in Exotic Eve 1890, further freeing herself from the constraints of European culture and physically allowing herself to guide Gauguin out of these restrictive society as well. In this painting, Eve is taking a piece of fruit from the tree with the serpent on the left side of the painting, holding another piece in her other hand in the center, and observing a rooster and hen mating on the right. Here, Gauguin tells the story of the Temptation, but rather than concentrate on this act as the portal to a world filled with sin, he instead manifests this moment as the beginning of new life with the copulating animals on the right. It is also no coincidence that this Eve was painted with Gauguin's mother's features (Amishai-Maisels 374), as he considered Eve to be the mother of all life on Earth, and like Eve, it is a mother's job to guide and prepare her children for the world that they are a part of.




Still bored with Europe, it was not until later this year that Gauguin decided to go to Tahiti to continue his search for the "primitive," believing that this island would finally serve as his ultimate Paradise. In a letter to fellow symbolist, Odilon Redon, Gauguin writes:

"I am set in my decisions, and since I have been in Brittany I have modified it. Madagascar is still too near to the civilized world; I am going to go to Tahiti and I hope to finish my life there. I believe that my art, which you love, is only a seed and I hope that down there I can cultivate it for myself to a primitive and savage state." (qtd Prather 50)

Here, Gauguin shows that he needs to leave Europe in order to immerse himself in his ideal primitive culture and to allow his art to grow. Hoping to find his cultivating Garden of Eden in Tahiti, it is only with Eve as his guide that he can develop as an artist and have his art blossom into his "primitive and savage state".

When we first see Eve in Gauguin's 1888 painting Human Miseries and Eve: Don't Listen to the Liar (Breton Eve) of 1889 (both painted in Brittany), she is still cowering and full of guilt. Although it may not be apparent to the viewer that this slouching woman in Human Miseries is a representation of Eve the pose that she holds is extremely important in manifesting the distress that Eve philosophically experienced as a result of centuries of scrutiny in Judeo-Christian doctrine. This famous position also resurfaces in future representations of Eve, while being a link back to actual primitivism as Gauguin modeled his sitting Eve's pose on a skeleton of a Peruvian Mummy whose body is positioned in the same fashion (Barskaya 30). Again, it is this position that is so crucial to how the Eve is viewed in Human Miseries. Frédérique de Gravelaine writes about this painting and those to come: "Eve, in the posture of the mummy will soon stand, disrobe, and be free from the guilt that, before Tahiti, continues to weigh on her" (Gravelaine 64). This prediction is a perfect summary of how Eve's posture is indicative of how she is being portrayed in her society. In Eve: Don't Listen to the Liar, she is sitting in the same position; however, she is now naked (as de Gravelaine remarked) and is actually covering her ears in response to Gauguin's plea not to "listen to the liar," or in other words, not to give in to the temptation of the serpent behind her. In Brittany, Eve is still a part of the modern Europe where she remains a temptress. As she disrobes, however, she is not only emancipating herself of this European guilt, but she is more importantly preparing to guide Gauguin into a more "primitive", sin-free world.