MUSEE ORSAY, Gauguin_Tahitian Women On The Beach_Galerie Francoise Cachin

Tahitian Women on the Beach is one of Gauguin's most famous works, painted during one of the most important moments of his troubled life, when he managed to leave Europe, fleeing economic problems and the sense of oppression of a society in which he did not recognize himself.

This is what Gauguin wrote to his wife in 1891, shortly before leaving for Tahiti, 'May the day come when I flee to the woods of some island in Oceania, to live on ecstasy, calm and art, surrounded by a new family, far from the European struggle for money'. By travelling to these remote places, he dreamed of creating an 'atelier of the tropics' where artists could live without money, while singing and loving.

And it was precisely in the South Sea islands that the best of Gauguin's artistic creation came to life, between 1891 and 1903, during his stays in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, in Polynesia, where he would die in prison, convicted for opposing the racist policies of the local French government.

Tahitian Women on the Beach is one of the first paintings the artist made on this island, even painting two extremely similar versions, the one you are admiring and one preserved in the Dresden Museum in Germany, which differs in certain details such as the clothes worn by the woman portrayed on the right. In the painting before you, the subject is wearing a typical Catholic mission dress, her legs are crossed and only one foot is visible, whereas in the Dresden version she is wrapped in a colorful yellow and blue sarong and her legs are clearly visible.

At the beginning of his first stay in Tahiti, Gauguin often painted local women engaged in everyday activities. In the locals he hoped to find the innocence and simplicity of living away from the conditioning of Western civilization, just like these two women, sitting on the sand of the beach, with the sea behind them, in silence, absorbed in their thoughts.

Here's an interesting fact: As you know, Gauguin lived for a short time in Arles with his friend Vincent Van Gogh, a cohabitation that ended with a dramatic quarrel in which the Dutch artist cut off his ear. What you may not know is that their time together was very prolific, especially for Van Gogh, who produced around two hundred paintings.