Haere Mai, 1891. Oil on burlap, 28 1/2 x 36 inches. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Thannhauser Collection, Gift, Justin K. Thannhauser. 78.2514.16.
The artist’s idyllic Tahitian landscapes In the Vanilla Grove, Man and Horse and Haere Mai reveal the contradictions between myth and reality that are inherent to “primitivism.” Both canvases probably depict the area surrounding Mataiea, the small village in which Gauguin settled during the fall of 1891. As richly hued tapestries of flattened forms, they are, however, only evocations of the lush Tahitian terrain, reflecting the simplicity of form sought by the artist during his first visit to the island. Gauguin derived the pose of the man and horse in In the Vanilla Grove not from a scene he found in Tahiti but from a frieze on the quintessential monument of Western culture, the Parthenon. Gauguin painted the phrase “Haere Mai,” which means “Come here!” in Tahitian, onto the other canvas in the lower-right corner, but it does not appear to coincide with the content of the painting. The artist, who spoke little of the native language at that time, often combined disparate Tahitian phrases with images in an effort to evoke the foreign and the mystical. Evidently, this practice was designed to make the paintings more enticing to the Parisian public, who craved intimations of the distant and the exotic. |