Chez les Maories: Sauvageries (At Home with the Maori: Savage Things)

Chez les Maories: Sauvageries (At Home with the Maori: Savage Things) is a powerful and evocative painting created by Paul Gauguin French, 1848-1903, during his extended sojourn in the South Pacific. Executed in 1893, the work is characteristic of the artist’s mature style, reflecting his ongoing preoccupation with fusing European Post-Impressionist aesthetics with the spirituality and visual culture of the indigenous peoples he encountered. Gauguin, who had departed France in search of an antidote to industrialized modern society, found in Tahiti a setting that informed his revolutionary use of saturated color and simplified forms.

The materiality of the piece is distinct and essential to its cultural context. This painting is rendered primarily in watercolor, but features subtle traces of black crayon and graphite, applied to a piece of tapa cloth. Tapa, a durable, non-woven fabric traditionally made from the inner bark of specific trees, was a locally significant medium, lending the work an immediate connection to the region. This utilization of tapa, which is partially laid down on cream wove paper, underscores the French artist's experimental approach to integrating indigenous materials into fine art production, distinguishing this watercolor from his more conventionally surfaced canvases.

Through the complex layering of medium and material, Gauguin attempts to convey the emotional and visceral essence implied by the subtitle "Savage Things." This artistic vision, though derived from observation, ultimately reflects Gauguin’s own symbolic narrative concerning non-Western exoticism. Chez les Maories: Sauvageries is a key example of the artist’s commitment to exploring mythical and symbolic subject matter in his late career. This important work resides within the distinguished collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. As a masterwork of modern art, the image is frequently studied, and high-quality prints are often available through museum and public domain art programs globally.