Gauguin (Paul Gauguin) "Ia Orana Maria (Salute to Mary)"

Gauguin's first visit to Tahiti resulted in many outstanding works. Living within the poetic pastoral scenery of Tahiti and abandoning civilization for a life of non-contention, he quickly ignited the fire of creation and entered his peak period. If Gauguin had not come to Tahiti, art history might have been rewritten. Facing this primal essence and self-liberation, painting suddenly gained enlightenment; subjective consciousness was boldly applied with flat colors, resulting in vibrant, brilliant, mysterious, and flattened aesthetics that were archaic, simple, returned to primitivism, and coexisted with decorative, symbolic, and metaphorical qualities.

In "Ia Orana Maria (Salute to Mary)," which displays Gauguin's humble faith, the primitive harmonious world is clearly depicted using Western religious themes. Amidst lush flora and fauna, the benevolent Virgin Mary of Tahiti, surrounded by white flowers and wearing a bright red dress, holds the Holy Child on her shoulder. Both figures bear holy halos and stand sideways before an unusual pile of subtropical fruits (bananas and watermelons). In the middle ground, two women dressed in traditional Tahitian attire pray devoutly with hands clasped to the Virgin Mother, followed by a female angel with large golden wings. Under Gauguin's most intuitive and emotional use of color (green, red, orange, purple, yellow, blue, and white), an extraordinary serene and peaceful sacred atmosphere emerges.

In this metaphysical painting world filled only with vibrant colors and devoid of any shadows, Gauguin wrote in a letter to his patron friend in 1892: "I am glad to finally quench my strong thirst for color and the exoticism I longed for."