Hula Girls, Imagining Paradise

Clip 2: Gauguin’s paradise

Taken from the documentary Hula Girls, Imagining Paradise (2005)

Original title classification not known – this clip chosen to be PG

This clip contains low-level nudity.

Curator’s clip description

Gauguin arrives in Tahiti to find the paradise he longs to paint has almost completely disappeared. But he soon finds models to paint including fourteen-year-old Tahitian girl Teha’amana who also becomes his lover. Stephen Eisenman, author and Professor of Art History in Illinois, examines Gauguin’s work of this period and highlights that while he conformed to some of the Exoticist stereotypes, Gauguin also painted some of his Tahitian models in realistic detail. Narrator Kerry Armstrong explains that the impact that his years in Tahiti had on Gauguin caused him to promote and support ‘Indigenous rights against violations by French officials’ and the Catholic Church. According to Eisenman, at this point Gauguin has become ‘nativised’.

Curator’s notes

The complexities of cultural exchange shown in this clip through Gauguin’s experience illustrate that these encounters were often as transformative for Europeans as for the Indigenous populations (although in very different ways).

Lauren Williams, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This clip shows parts of an interview with art historian Stephen Eisenman discussing the life, times and artworks of the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin. Intercut with shots of paintings by Gauguin that illustrate Eisenman’s analysis is footage of Eisenman discussing Gauguin’s Tahitian period, when the artist lived and painted prolifically on the island. Most of the paintings shown depict Tahitian women but there is also a portrait of a European man. The clip includes early black-and-white photographs of Tahitian women.

Educational value points

The clip shows exoticist paintings produced by French artist Paul Gauguin while he lived in Tahiti. Travelling back and forth between France and Tahiti between 1890 and 1897, Gauguin (1848–1903) developed the style for which he is best known during that period, combining bright, non-naturalistic colour and flat planes with symbolic paintings of Tahitian subjects outside the influence of accepted Western styles. Known as ‘primitive art’, this work continued the development in his art that he had pursued before leaving France. Most of the works now considered his masterpieces, such as ‘La Orana Maria’ (1891) and ‘Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?’ (1897), were painted while he was in Tahiti.

The clip refers to Gauguin’s longing for a paradise to paint and his exposure to and interest in exotic locations. In 1887 he embarked on a voyage to Panama. In 1891, after having returned to Paris for a few years, he sailed to Tahiti where he dreamed of finding an unspoilt paradise.

The young girl Teha’amana is referred to as Gauguin’s muse. After arriving in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti, in 1891, Gauguin moved to Matateia, 48 km away, and set up house with Teha’amana, a 13-year-old girl who became the subject of one of his greatest paintings, ‘Manoa Tupapua’, in 1892.

The art historian Stephen Eisenman refers to Exoticism, a trend in art and design influenced by non-European and ancient cultures and charged with romantic notions of far-off lands or ancient times. Colonialism and access to travel influenced the taste of 19th-century European collectors and artists. The fascination for exotic styles was also fuelled by displays of non-Western art at many of the international exhibitions from 1851 onwards. By the end of the century exotic images were being used to sell a huge range of consumer products.

Gauguin did not find the paradise he was seeking in Tahiti and he disapproved of the attitude of French administrators, missionaries and European settlers towards the Polynesian people. In 1901, seeking somewhere more remote, he travelled 1,127 km from Tahiti to Hiva Oa on the Marquesas Islands. There he built a house of woven bamboo that he called ‘Maison du Jouir’, variously interpreted as House of Pleasure and House of Orgasm, where he died in 1903.

Reference is made in the clip to the ‘acute’ syphilis suffered by Paul Gauguin at the time of his relationship with Teha’amana. Syphilis is a chronic venereal disease that, if untreated, can result in severe consequences including mental illness and death. It is only infectious in the first 12 months, the acute phase. It is not clear when Gauguin contracted syphilis. One source suggests it was during his return trip to Europe between 1893 and 1895.

The disease syphilis, from which Gauguin was suffering while he lived in Tahiti, had a devastating effect on the island’s population. In 1774 when Captain James Cook visited the island, the estimated population was between 100,000 and 200,000. Sailors from European ships that continued to visit the island brought with them many diseases including syphilis and smallpox. By 1797 the island’s population was estimated at 16,000 and it dropped still further.