Parau na te Varua ino (Words of the Devil)

Parau na te Varua ino (Words of the Devil) was painted in 1892 during Gauguin's first Tahitian stay and depicts a nude young woman confronted by a dark, crouching figure — a spirit or demon from Polynesian belief. Gauguin was intensely interested in the traditional Maori and Tahitian spirit world, which he studied through Moerenhout's Voyages aux îles du Grand Océan (1837), a text he transcribed extensively in his notebooks. The serpent-like figure behind the woman and the biblical subtext of temptation deliberately merge Polynesian mythology with the Western Eden narrative, creating a syncretic imagery that was entirely Gauguin's own construction.

The nude figure occupies the centre in a warm golden-ochre tonality. The crouching dark figure behind creates a strong shadow accent. The background is handled in flat decorative zones of green and purple that frame the central drama without conventional spatial recession.