Paul Gauguin, 'Faa Iheihe', 1898

Paul Gauguin made this painting in Tahiti in 1898. Its size may suggest the long panels used to adorn a frieze in a grand house’s reception room. It depicts a sequence of figures gathering flowers and fruit in a tropical glade. The structure of the picture raises many questions. Does it show a naked woman standing very slightly to the right of centre, with a group of figures on either side of her? Or does it show two groups of three? Or perhaps the central figure is repeated so that we see her from both front and back, and the horseman on the right is a detached, isolated figure? Is there a hidden narrative which is only hinted at?

The artist included a title, Faa Iheihe, in a scroll on the bottom right-hand side. It is a transliteration of the Tahitian word ‘fa`ai`ei`e’, or ‘to beautify’, alluding to the idea of dressing up for a special occasion. Yet, it does little to explain the picture’s subject. It has been suggested that Gauguin made a mistake and the word should read ‘Faa Ineine’, meaning ‘preparations for a festival’.

The painting has traditionally been taken to represent a sort of idyllic world, with young men and women living in harmony with nature. Indeed, the painting has sometimes been subtitled ‘Tahitian Pastoral’, evoking what Gauguin referred to as the island’s ‘outdoor life – yet intimate at the same time, in the thickets and the shady streams, these women whispering in an immense palace decorated by nature itself’. If there is a sense of an idyll, there is also a feeling of sadness. Four of the figures cast their eyes downwards and seem mostly unaware of each others’ presence.

The central figure may recall representations of Eve and Venus, popular in Western art. Gauguin also seems to have been influenced by the stone friezes in Javanese temples. The woman’s pose, with her hand raised sideways between her breasts, is reminiscent of this. A photograph showing standing female nudes among stylised trees from a Javanese temple decoration was found among Gauguin’s possessions when he died in 1903.

The figure of the dog references a painting by Gustave Courbet. It is in a similar pose to the red dog depicted in Gauguin’s Harvest: Le Pouldu (Tate, London).