In 1891 Gauguin sailed to Polynesia in order to avoid European civilization and “everything that is artificial and usual.” His works of that period are full of quasi-religious symbols and an exotic view of the inhabitants of Polynesia. In 1896, he painted this picture in Tahiti after he returned from a brief stay in France.
A group of mysterious young women, it seems, gathers fruit in the garden. Their feet stand on the red earth. Behind them we see the yellow sky. Fixed, distant, silent, silent solemn figures, perhaps exposing a sign of the artist’s isolation and poor health at the time of writing the picture.
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