Tahiti - Gauguin

Gauguin

In 1891, a French painter raised in Peru set up home here, near a lagoon at Mataiea not far from where I am now standing.  Paul Gauguin had gambled much on painting.  His wife had already disowned him; he had abandoned a successful career in the Paris Stock Exchange; and, had seen his friend, Vincent van Gogh first cut off his lobe at a house they shared in Arles, before hearing news that the Dutchman had taken his own life.  

Little wonder, on the eve of his departure to Tahiti, he was quoted as saying, ‘I am leaving to find peace, to rid myself of the influence of civilisation…I want to create art… To do that I need to renew myself in unspoiled nature.’ 

Here at Mataiea there is a museum dedicated to Gauguin.  It houses replicas of his paintings – such as his most famous Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? – along with authentic photographs, sketches, notebooks and wooden carvings.  Despite illness and financial problems, Gauguin painted 66 canvases here, before sailing briefly back to Paris and returning here in 1895.  In 1900 he settled on Hiva Oa, in the Marquesas Islands, building his own studio ‘Maison du Jouir,’ and is now buried there, following his death in 1903.

For me, the story of Gauguin has always been inspirational.  I first read about him in W. Somerset Maugham’s fictional representation, The Moon & Sixpence, while working at a call centre in London almost 20years ago, searching for the courage to follow my own dreams of writing.  

Avoiding the moral judgements concerning his decisions to forgo his responsibilities and securities in Europe, it always struck me as admirable to be prepared to follow a passion to the ends of the Earth – especially when we are surrounded by so many who seem able to give good lip service to the pursuit of dreams, yet seldom do anything about working towards them.

Being here at Mataiea reminds me almost of CP Cavafy’s poem ‘Ithaka’ – where we are reminded that it is the journey towards our dreams that is more important than the actual realisation of them.

I look now at these slow moving waters of this lagoon and see the same colours reflected and refracted through them as Gauguin must have seen all that time ago.  The black sand, shimmers with flecks of gold coral; the ocean deep with flat patches of blues, bottle greens sinking down, as a hue of pink forms in its curling foam. 

Same place, same colours, same sounds.  

In 1894 Gauguin wrote in Noa Noa, his Tahitian Diary, ‘I am learning to know the silence of Tahiti.  In this silence I hear nothing except the beating of my heart. I understand why people can remain seated for hours and days gazing at the sky.’