Maruru (Offerings of Gratitude)

Maruru (Offerings of Gratitude) is a seminal wood engraving by the French Post-Impressionist master, Paul Gauguin. Created around 1893 during the artist’s first extended stay in Tahiti, this powerful print demonstrates Gauguin's intense commitment to exploring non-traditional media. He utilized the wood engraving technique to develop a raw, textural graphic language distinct from the smooth surfaces of his paintings. This approach allowed for the deep, black masses and simplified linear elements that contribute to the work's deliberate primitivism, reflecting his evolving aesthetic philosophy of the 1893-94 period.

The title, Maruru, is a Tahitian term denoting gratitude or thanks, indicating that the piece captures a moment of ritual or devotion. Gauguin often utilized these graphic works as visual and ethnographic studies, processing the cultural stimuli he encountered in the South Seas into highly stylized, symbolic forms. Though the wood block was conceived and cut by the artist in 1893, impressions were often printed much later; this particular example dates from 1921. This posthumous printing highlights the lasting importance of Gauguin’s graphic output and its continuing influence on subsequent modern art movements, especially German Expressionism, which highly valued the raw directness achievable through woodcut and wood engraving.

The complex, fragmented composition achieved through the cutting of the wood block is characteristic of Gauguin’s move toward Symbolism and graphic innovation. This work is essential to understanding the evolution of modern European printmaking and the ways artists disseminated their ideas through replicable prints. Maruru serves as a vital document of Gauguin’s late career, illustrating his formal mastery over the demanding medium of wood engraving. It is classified as a French print and is preserved today in the esteemed collection of the Museum of Modern Art.