Noa noa (Fragrant)
1894/95
Medium
Wood-block print in black ink, with red, orange, blue, mauve, light green, and green watercolor on parchment
Dimensions
Image: 14.5 × 11.8 cm (5 3/4 × 4 11/16 in.); Sheet: 14.7 × 12 cm (5 13/16 × 4 3/4 in.)
Classification
woodcut
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
63085
Art Historical Context
**Noa NoaFragrant)**, created by Paul Gauguin 1894–95, captures the artist's fascination with Tah life during his transformative stay in the South Pacific. fleeing the constraints of European society, Gauin arrived in Tahiti in 1891, immersing himself in its culture and. This woodcut is of his intimate *No Noa* series— after his journal of the same title, meaning "fragrant" initian—where he evoked exotic paradises through simplified forms and symbolism. As a Postpressionist pioneer, Gauguin rejectedism for bold colors and perspectives, drawing from Japanese prints and Polynesian to romanticize...
About the Artist
Paul Gauguin · 1848–1903
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French Post-Impressionist painter whose bold experiments with color, form, and subject matter made him one of the most influential figures in the transition from 19th-century art to modernism. His rejection of European civilization for the perceived authenticity of 'primitive' cultures established an archetype of artistic exile that continues to resonate. Gauguin's ...