Delightful Land (Te Nave Nave Fenua)

Delightful Land (Te Nave Nave Fenua, 1892) at the Ohara Museum of Art in Kurashiki, Japan, is among the most important works from Gauguin's first Tahitian year — a large composition that develops the Eden parallel most explicitly of any canvas from that period. The 'delightful land' of the Tahitian title was simultaneously a literal description of Gauguin's experience of Tahiti — its lush beauty, its warm climate, the unhurried quality of life he found there — and an explicit comparison with the biblical Garden of Eden. The nude woman in the tropical garden, with a spirit-creature in the foliage above her, evokes the pre-Fall Eve as directly as any European painting could, but the specific cultural and botanical context is entirely Polynesian. The Ohara Museum of Art, which assembled one of Japan's finest collections of European art through the collecting of businessman Ohara Magosaburō in the early twentieth century, holds this canvas as the centerpiece of its Gauguin holdings.

The nude figure stands against an intensely coloured tropical garden — deep greens, brilliant flower colours, and the warm ochre of the earth. The woman's golden skin glows against the rich vegetation. Gauguin's characteristic firm contour defines her silhouette clearly against the densely painted background. A fantastic bird or spirit creature in the foliage suggests the presence of supernatural forces in this earthly Eden.