Hiva Oa

Hiva Oa is the name of the Marquesan island where Gauguin settled in 1901, drawn by reports of an even less colonised society than Tahiti had become. Several works from this final period simply take the island's name as their title, recording the dense, steep landscape of the Marquesas whose mountains and vegetation differed markedly from the flatter Tahitian coast Gauguin had painted through the 1890s. By 1901–02, Gauguin was in persistent conflict with local Catholic missionaries and French colonial authorities, even attempting to encourage Marquesan villagers to refuse paying taxes, a provocation that contributed to his prosecution and eventual fine before his death in May 1903.

The Marquesan landscape canvases from Gauguin's final years show deeper, more saturated colour than his earlier Tahitian work, the vegetation built from layered strokes of violet-green and blue-black. The spatial construction is less structured, with the eye led upward along a steep incline rather than across a shallow horizontal stage.