The Seed of the Areoi

In the spring of 1891 Gauguin traveled to the South Pacific island of Tahiti, then a French colony. He hoped to find an enchanting paradise, far from the modern metropolis of Paris. However, by the time of Gauguin's arrival, Tahiti had been profoundly altered by French colonization: poverty and sickness were rampant. Still, in his paintings of the island, Gauguin included elements of the imaginary, configuring Tahiti as a pre-modern land of leisure.