I guess it's a view into the mind of an artist but it's more of a view into the bigoted minds of the people of that time.

Noa Noa is a travelogue written by Gauguin, first published in 1901. I was disgusted by all this European triviality. There was one point where he wrote about her laying on a bed afraid of spirits and it sounds just like his painting 3.75 stars - I enjoyed the way Gauguin painted this view of Tahiti and his diligence in recording all of the gods and goddesses of that place. Thus cleansed with the bosom erect and with the two shells covering the breasts rising in points under the muslin of the corsage, they again took up the way to Papeete. This is his diary of his stay in Tahiti.The French painter Paul Gauguin traveled to Tahiti in the late 1890´s. In this movement her slight, transparent dress stretched taut over her loins—loins to bear a world. He found this world so much more beautiful than where he came from and it inspired much of his art that he is famous for. Much of the later half of the text is about Maori spirituality and their pantheon.

[Paul Gauguin; John Miller] -- In 1894, Paul Gauguin left Europe to spend two years in Tahiti, where he produced some of his most beautiful and best-known paintings. The conversation, however, did not want to become animated.

Complete with sensuous woodblock prints and sketches, this exquisitely designed editionfirst publisIn 1894, Paul Gauguin left what he considered to be a culturally bereft Europe to live an unfettered life in a tropical paradiseTahiti. What he found was beautiful islands, tropical warmth, and most importantly-unspoiled, undecadent, unEuropean and extremely beautiful people.

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. I do wish he hadn't spent so much time chronicling Tahitian mysticism. His business was the freedom his art brought him. "I pointed with the finger to a bottle, which I had just bought, standing on the ground in a corner of the room.Showing neither displeasure nor eagerness she went to the place indicated, and bent down to pick up the bottle. It was an 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. Complete with sensuous woodblock prints and sketches, this exquisitely designed editionfirst published by Chronicle in 1994 and now reissued with a beautiful new jacketis still the only translation to contain all of Gauguin's richly colored illustrations of the Tahiti diary. It reminded one somewhat of a "return from the races.

This book was the journal he kept. The combination is both calm and potent, like the power of the sea holding hands with the wind.people that want to justify Gauguin leaving his family for Thaitii forgot about this book until i saw it in a bookstore today. 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. He found this world so much moreEnjoying read, interesting look into Paul Gaugin's experience of Tahitian culture. 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.

Then throughout he refers to her as a "child," so I guess not. With him Maori history closed.

His business was the freedom his art brought him. Then the Protestant clergyman delivered a sermon to which Tati, the brother of the queen, responded.

He also wanted to show Europeans the stunning beauty of these islands. I would really give it 3.5 stars, wish Good Reads had 1/2 star options. Paul Gauguin is one of my favorite painters.

I have escaped everything that is artificial, conventional, customary. Both partners mark anniversaries in different ways.

In spite of traces of profoundly native and truly Maori characteristics, the many contacts had caused her to lose many of her distinctive racial "differences." I looked at his art of European scenes and they were not captivating like his Oceana subjects.For artists only who are curious about Gaugin. But how was I, all by myself, to find the traces of this past if any such traces remained? In her eyes there sometimes burned something like a vague presentiment of passions which flared up suddenly and set aflame all the life round about. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. In the countryside he learns of some of the Tahitian myths and beliefs of the area. He was fascinated by the Tahitians and their relationship with the natural world which was much closer and harmonious than in the European/French view he came from. Loaded with fun things to do, such as ...

Both the human beings and the objects were so different from those I had desired, that I was disappointed. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. 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 there that he produced some of his most beautiful and best-known paintings, as well as another masterpiece: this enchanting journal.

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.