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    Noa Noa: The Tahitian Journal
    Noa Noa: The Tahitian Journal
    Noa Noa: The Tahitian Journal
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    Noa Noa: The Tahitian Journal

    By Paul Gauguin

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    About this ebook

    Paul Gauguin fled what he called "filthy Europe" in 1891 to what he hoped would be an unspoiled paradise, Tahiti. He painted 66 magnificent can vases during the first two years he spent there and kept notes from which he later wrote Noa Noa — a journal recording his thoughts and impressions of that time.
    Noa Noa — the most widely known of Gauguin's writings — is reproduced here from a rare early edition (1919), in a lucid translation capturing the artist's unpretentious style. Page after page reveals Gauguin's keen observations of Tahiti and its people, and his passionate struggle to achieve the inner harmony he expressed so profoundly on canvas. Gauguin's prose is as seductive as his paintings, filled with descriptions of warm seas, hidden lagoons, lush green forests, and beautiful Maori women.
    The journal is captivating reading, offering a compelling autobiographical fragment of the soul of a genius and a rare glimpse of Oceanian culture. The brief periods of happiness Gauguin found among the Tahitians are eloquently expressed in his narrative. We understand the motives that drove him and gain a deeper appreciation of his art.
    Today the manuscript provides unparalleled insight into Gauguin's thoughts as he strove to achieve spiritual peace, and into the wellsprings of a singular artistic style which changed the course of modern art. This wonderfully affordable edition — enhanced by 24 of Gauguin's South Seas drawings — makes a unique and passionate testament accessible to all art lovers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateJun 14, 2012
    ISBN9780486139173
    Noa Noa: The Tahitian Journal

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    • 5/5
      Gauguin was unable to publish this memoir of his two years in Tahiti as he wanted with his woodcuts and without censorship in 1900 because of the prudishness of the day. Today it seems rather mild. He was on a quest for a purity and escape that he never quite found. He documents his perception of the damage done by Europeans to the Tahitian culture and his understanding of their theology as conveyed to him by his young native bride. It's an interesting look at a vanished world the price imperialism imposed. His accompanying art is delightful.

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    Noa Noa - Paul Gauguin

    DOVER BOOKS ON FINE ART

    BEARDSLEY’S LE MORTE DARTHUR: SELECTED ILLUSTRATIONS, AUBREY BEARDSLEY. (0-486-41795-6)

    WILLIAM BLAKE’S DIVINE COMEDY ILLUSTRATIONS: 102 FULL-COLOR PLATES, WILLIAM BLAKE. (0-486-46429-6)

    BLAKE’S WATER-COLOURS FOR THE POEMS OF THOMAS GRAY: WITH COMPLETE TEXTS, WILLIAM BLAKE. (0-486-40944-9)

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    AN EDWARDIAN BESTIARY: 87 COLOR PLATES BY MAURICE & EDWARD J. DETMOLD, MAURICE DETMOLD AND EDWARD J. DETMOLD. EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JEFF A. MENGES. (0-486-46877-1)

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    GREAT DRAWINGS OF NUDES: 45 WORKS, EDITED BY CAROL BELANGER GRAFTON. (0-486-42766-8)

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    SEE EVERY DOVER BOOK IN PRINT AT WWW.DOVERPUBLICATIONS.COM

    Chats without words.

    Copyright © 1985 by Dover Publications. Inc. All rights reserved.

    This Dover edition, first published in 1985, is an unabridged republication of the work first published by Nicholas L. Brown. New York. in 1919, under the title Noa Noa. this edition also contains new illustrations. which were first published in The Intimate Journals of Paul Gauguin by William Heinemann. Ltd., London, in 1923. The translations of the artist’s inscriptions on these illustrations are new. prepared especially for this Dover edition.

    Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

    Gauguin. Paul, 1848-1903

    Noa Noa : the Tahitian journal.

    Translated from the French.

    Reprint. Originally published: New York : N.L. Brown. 1920, c1919.

    I. Gauguin. Paul, 1848-1903. 2. Painters—France—Biography. 3. Tahiti. I. Title.

    ND553.G27A2 1985 759.4 [B] 84-21058

    9780486139173

    Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

    24859314

    www.doverpublications.com

    Table of Contents

    DOVER BOOKS ON FINE ART

    Title Page

    Copyright Page

    Dites, qu’avez-vous vu?

    Dites, qu’avez-vous vu?

    CHARLES BAUDELAIRE.

    On the eighth of June, during the night, after a sixty-three days’ voyage, sixty-three days of feverish expectancy, we perceived strange fires, moving in zigzags on the sea. From the somber sky a black cone with jagged indentions became disengaged.

    We turned Morea and had Tahiti before us.

    Several hours later dawn appeared, and we gently approached the reefs, entered the channel, and anchored without accidents in the roadstead.

    The first view of this part of the island discloses nothing very extraordinary; nothing, for instance, that could be compared with the magnificent bay of Rio de Janeiro.

    It is the summit of a mountain submerged at the time of one of the ancient deluges. Only the very point rose above the waters. A family fled thither and founded a new race—and then the corals climbed up along it, surrounding the peak, and in the course of centuries builded a new land. It is still extending, but retains its original character of solitude and isolation, which is only accentuated by the immense expanse of the ocean.

    Toward ten o’clock I made my formal call on the governor, the negro Lacascade, who received me as though I had been an important personage.

    I owed this distinction to the mission with which the French government—I do not know why—had entrusted me. It was an artistic mission, it is true. But in the view of the negro, however, this word was only an official synonym for espionage, and I tried in vain to undeceive him. Every one about him shared this belief, and when I said that I was receiving no pay for my mission no one would believe me.

    Life at Papeete soon became a burden.

    It was Europe—the Europe which I had thought to shake off—and that under the aggravating circumstances of colonial snobbism, and the imitation, grotesque even to the point of caricature, of our customs, fashions, vices, and absurdities of civilization.

    Was I to have made this far journey, only to find the very thing which I had fled?

    Nevertheless, there was a public event which interested me.

    At the time King Pomare was mortally ill, and the end was daily expected.

    Little by little the city had assumed a singular aspect.

    All the Europeans, merchants, functionaries, officers, and soldiers, laughed and sang on the streets as usual, while the natives with grave mien and lowered voice held converse among themselves in the neighborhood of the palace. In the roadstead there was an abnormal movement of orange sails on the blue sea, and often the line of reefs shone in a sudden silvery gleam under the sun. The natives of neighboring islands were hastening hither to attend at the last moments of their king, and at the definite taking possession of their empire by France.

    By signs from above they had had report of this, for whenever a king was about to die the mountains in certain places became covered with dark spots at the setting of the sun.

    The king died, and lay in state in the palace in the uniform of an admiral.

    There I saw the queen, Maraü—such was her name—decorating the royal hall with flowers and materials. When the director of public works asked my advice about the artistic arrangements of the funeral, I pointed out the queen to him. With the beautiful instinct of her race she dispersed grace everywhere about her, and made everything she touched a work of art.

    I understood her only imperfectly at this first meeting. Both the human beings and the objects were so different from those I had desired, that I was disappointed.

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