So what was Gauguin’s actual purpose in his travels and what did he expect to find in Tahiti? As John Rewald points out, the painter’s life back in France was far from rosy: he was perceived as a pariah, a social misfit with no future and financial prospects (Rewald 18). Thus, he made the decision to escape this unfortunate situation by retiring to Tahiti, hoping that this move would grant him the happiness that he had been striving to find throughout his entire life. 
As he mentioned in an interview, Gauguin wanted to be rid of the influence of civilization, to immerse himself in the virgin nature, to see no one but savages and live their life (Druick 18). This is where his error in judgment originates: he despised civilization, a trademark of France at that time; that is, he replaced a widely appreciated value by a personal bias. In his book dedicated to this specific period from Gauguin’s life, Douglas Druick comments that the painter had an idealized image of the islands prior to his arrival there. He saw it as “an earthly paradise […] offering economic and psychic renewal” (Druick 18). What he did not know was that his confrontation with the Tahitian culture would not “renew” him as much as have an irremediable negative impact. The islands would prove to be a battleground between his individuality and the symbol of the Polynesian world, the idol.
This idol appears in the form of statues throughout the mainland of the isles and it encompasses the laws by which Tahitians exist: their customs, beliefs, legends and deities. As Gauguin writes in his journal, the king of the gods in Tahiti was Taaroa, representing Venus, the morning star, and all the other gods were related to primary elements of the world, such as air, water, earth, light, rainbow, rain or wind (Noa Noa 6). Thus it is clear how primitive is the association between the idol and the Tahitian mythology, as it conveys the power of the origins of life. This primitive power of the idol was faced by the painter from the very first moment of his arrival in Tahiti, and would follow him permanently from that moment on.
Image:
Killing time. 1892. Private Collection