"The imagery of Marquesan art is testament to the myriad beings and creatures who inhabited the Marquesan universe - gods, ancestors, humans, lizards, turtles, fish - and to the islands' complex social and political organization. These art forms are explored in the present volume, published in conjunction with the exhibition "Adorning the World: Art of the Marquesas Islands," held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art."--BOOK JACKET.

"The evolution of this fascinating encounter between European and Polynesian culture also focuses on the larger development of art in the Pacific in the era following its first European contact. Twelve insightful and original essays about Paul Gauguin and Polynesia, written by eminent scholars in the field of art history and ethnology, present the development of Polynesian art before and after Gauguin's stay in Polynesia at the end of the 19th century. The book presents over 60 works by Paul Gauguin, fully revealing the extent of the influence of Polynesian art and culture on his work, while also highlighting more than 60 works from the Pacific that exemplify the dynamic exchanges of Pacific Island peoples with Europeans throughout the 19th century."--Publisher's website.

In this book 310 paintings are reproduced on 224 color plates. It is a rather large collection in one compendium, covering the prolific painter's and artist's most dramatic and expressive period from 1887 to his death in 1903. The book begins with a biography, a eulogy by Charles Morice (1903), and excerpts from Gauguin's book “Noa Noa” narrating his adventures on Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands. In a somber, slightly hoarse voice, Gauguin said: “Primitive art comes from the spirit and uses nature. So-called refined art comes from sensuality and serves nature. Nature is the servant of the first and the mistress of the second. But the servant cannot forget her origins, she degrades the artist by allowing him to adore her. This is how we fall into the abominable error of Naturalism. Naturalism begins with the Greece of Pericles. Since then, there have been no more or less great artists except those who have somehow reacted against this error; but their reactions have been no more than leaps of memory, glimmers of good sense within a movement of decadence, in the end, uninterrupted for centuries. Truth is purely cerebral art, this is primitive art—the most learned of all—this was Egypt. There is the principle. In our present misery, there can be no salvation without a rational and sincere return to the principle. And this return is the necessary action of Symbolism in poetry and art…”

"An original study of Gauguin's writings, unfolding their central role in his artistic practice and negotiation of colonial identity. As a French artist who lived in Polynesia, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) occupies a crucial position in histories of European primitivism. This is the first book devoted to his wide-ranging literary output, which included journalism, travel writing, art criticism, and essays on aesthetics, religion, and politics. It analyzes his original manuscripts, some of which are richly illustrated, reinstating them as an integral component of his art. The seemingly haphazard, collage-like structure of Gauguin's manuscripts enabled him to evoke the "primitive" culture that he celebrated, while rejecting the style of establishment critics. Gauguin's writing was also a strategy for articulating a position on the margins of both the colonial and the indigenous communities in Polynesia; he sought to protect Polynesian society from "civilization" but remained implicated in the imperialist culture that he denounced. This critical analysis of his writings significantly enriches our understanding of the complexities of artistic encounters in the French colonial context."--Publisher's description.

This illustrated book, focuses on Gauguin's use of narrative, both as inspiration and fuel for his work and as a tool to create a personal mythology around himself as an artist

Vanishing paradise" offers a fresh take on the modernist primitivism of the French painter Paul Gauguin, the exoticism of the American John LaFarge, and the elite tourism of the American writer Henry Adams. Childs explores how these artists wrestled with the elusiveness of paradise and portrayed colonial Tahiti in ways both mythic and modern.