Nave nave fenua (Delightful Land), from the Noa Noa Suite

Nave nave fenua (Delightful Land), from the Noa Noa Suite, is a profound wood-block print created by Paul Gauguin (French, 1848-1903) between 1893 and 1894. This work stands as a pivotal example of the artist’s engagement with graphic media following his first transformative journey to Tahiti. Gauguin innovatively blended the starkness of the wood-block print medium-using black ink pressed onto tan wove paper-with meticulous, hand-applied color. The addition of vibrant watercolors-including red, blue, green, yellow, red-orange, and silver-gray-transforms each impression of the Nave nave fenua image into a unique monotype-like work.

Gauguin created the prints of the Noa Noa Suite to illustrate his semi-fictionalized autobiographical account of his time in the South Pacific, also titled Noa Noa (Fragrant Scent). The imagery captures the artist’s highly stylized, idealized vision of indigenous life. In this specific composition, two Tahitian women are depicted within a richly colored landscape of dense foliage, reflecting the Symbolist tendency toward flattened planes of color and evocative form. Gauguin sought to portray a land of unspoiled nature and ancient mythology, contrasting sharply with the industrialized society of France he had left behind.

This piece demonstrates Gauguin’s enduring influence on modern prints through his experimental approach to graphics and color theory. His synthesis of traditional relief printing techniques with a Post-Impressionist aesthetic is fully realized in this impression. As a key work in the history of Symbolist printmaking, this striking example of Nave nave fenua is maintained in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.