Noa Noa (Fragrant), from the Noa Noa Suite

Noa Noa (Fragrant), from the Noa Noa Suite, created by Paul Gauguin French, 1848-1903 between 1893 and 1894, is a pivotal work illustrating the artist's fascination with non-Western cultures following his first extensive trip to Tahiti. This powerful image, classified as a print, is part of a larger, highly ambitious suite designed to accompany Gauguin’s semi-fictionalized manuscript about his experiences in the South Pacific, also titled Noa Noa.

Gauguin's technical approach to the Noa Noa series demonstrates a profound experimentation with the woodcut medium, pushing beyond traditional French printmaking conventions. The underlying image is a wood-block print in black ink, meticulously applied over subtle traces of brown ink on specialized ivory Japanese paper. Crucially, Gauguin elevated this basic impression by individually hand-applying a wide array of watercolors. The resulting palette features shades of blue, several greens, pink, orange, yellow, pale-red, and dark-gray, transforming each output into a unique, quasi-monotype painting characterized by rich tonal complexity and expressive depth.

Produced shortly after Gauguin’s return to France, the work embodies his Post-Impressionist aesthetic combined with the Symbolist interest in the exotic, interpreting Tahitian life through stylized, flattened forms. These highly experimental prints were instrumental in advancing the possibilities of the woodcut medium in modern art during the 1890s. This specific impression is held in the comprehensive permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it serves as a key example of Gauguin's legacy. While the original prints are rare, the influence of these iconic works is widely studied today, often circulated through public domain archives.