Found
Dr. Caroline Boyle-Turner is an art historian and guest lecturer on the m/s Paul Gauguin and the author of Paul Gauguin and the Marquesas: Paradise Found? (Editions Vagamundo, 2016)
later, he landed on the island of Hiva Oa and settled in the small town of Atuona, where he would be buried only 20 months later. Yes, it was more primitive than Papeete, but it still had a doctor, post offi ce, Catholic mission, stores, and a police station. He was, after all, 53 years old and suff ering from heart problems and severe, painful eczema; his defi nition of “primitive” had to be modifi ed.
T e Marquesas consists of six inhabited islands, all created from extinct volcanoes. Its tall volcanic mountains are often shrouded in mists and are steep, with craggy, irregular summits. T eir fl anks are carpeted with thick green forests and deep valleys that often end in gorges and waterfalls. T ere are no reefs or lagoons: the waves pound directly against the rocky
cliff s or on a few black-sand beaches. Scattered in the dense woods are vestiges of stone platforms that once supported simple open-air living spaces. Other stone complexes were dedicated to religious ceremonies, often decorated with massive stone tikis (ancestor fi gures). All of this was gone, or hidden deep in the valleys when Gauguin arrived. But he felt the mystery of the place and its past and tried to express this in his approximately 40 paintings, many sculptures and drawings, as well as the three book-length manuscripts he wrote there.
He managed to buy a piece of land right in the center of town and then designed and built a unique house that would give him both privacy to work and access to visitors. He called it La Maison de Jouir (T e House
of Pleasure). It has been rebuilt to scale in the town’s Centre Paul Gauguin and demonstrates, with its large studio looking out on the dramatic Mt. Tematiu, that making art was his priority. He tried to be part of village life—but on his own terms.
Gauguin was buried high above the town. His tomb overlooks the beautiful bay and is guarded by a sculpture of his own making. It, too, conveys Gauguin’s fascination with the islands, their mysterious past, and his belief that he had fi nally found his artistic and spiritual paradise in the Marquesas Islands.
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