Color as Feeling

Paul Gauguin

Nave Nave Fenua (Delightful Land)

1893–94

Woodblock print in color with stenciling, image 35.9 × 20.7 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago

A nude woman stands among palms and flowers in a rough-cut print. It belongs to a set that critics of the time called a revolution in printmaking.

• The artist's own impressions were each inked and printed differently. Each sheet behaves more like a single work than one copy in an edition.
• It is one of ten woodcuts made for Noa Noa, his account of Tahiti.
• Look at the paper: the cream sheet has grayed with age.
• It was pressed twice on a yellow tone block, and red was added by stencil.
• Edward McCormick Blair gave this impression to the Art Institute.

He began Noa Noa after returning to Paris from his first stay in Tahiti. In a lecture, curator Cornelia Homburg calls the book largely fiction.

Woodcut

A print made by carving a wood block, inking its raised surface and pressing paper onto it.

Image: The Art Institute of Chicago · CC0