Die Mahlzeit (Die Bananen)

Gauguin reached Tahiti in the middle of 1891, having sold off work in Paris to pay for the voyage and convinced he would find something purer than European life out there. This was among the first paintings he made once he arrived. At first glance it is an ordinary still life, a table, a bowl, a knife, fruit laid out, but the fruit is bananas, guava and coconut, and behind the table sit three Tahitian children, watchful and still. Gauguin plays the familiar European set-up against everything in it that was new to him. The bowl and the pale flower are given as much weight as the faces. He signed and dated it that first year, when the island was still mostly a place he was learning to look at.