Arearea

Arearea — Joyfulness — is one of the paradigmatic works of Gauguin's first Tahitian period, permanently displayed at the Musée d'Orsay. The title announces an emotional state rather than describing a scene: two women rest in the foreground while figures perform behind them, and a red idol stands in the background, drawn from Gauguin's synthesis of Polynesian religious imagery. The work is partly a statement of his belief that Polynesian life retained a spiritual relationship with nature that Western modernity had irrevocably lost.

Arearea is remarkable for its deliberately unrealistic colours — the grass is vivid orange-red rather than green, a choice Gauguin justified as expressive necessity. Non-naturalistic colour is used throughout to convey spiritual conditions.