Eu haere ia oe

'Eu haere ia oe' translates as 'where are you going?' in Tahitian, and this 1893 canvas at the Hermitage Museum depicts a young Tahitian woman carrying a fruit, addressed by or addressing an unseen presence. Gauguin used Tahitian language titles for many of his Pacific works, giving them an air of authentic cultural specificity while also signaling to European audiences that they were viewing another world. He completed this canvas during the last months of his first Tahitian stay, before returning to France in 1893 to exhibit his Pacific work to a largely indifferent Paris audience.

The figure moves through a landscape of simplified tropical forms, her body rendered in the warm terracotta and ochre tones Gauguin favored for Tahitian figures. The synthetist flattening of form and the non-naturalistic color of the landscape behind her demonstrate the decorative pictorial language he had fully developed by the end of his first Pacific stay.