Not Working (Eiaha ohipa)

By 1896 Gauguin was back in Tahiti for the second time, broke and in poor health, still chasing the idea that life there ran on different rules than the Europe he had left. He painted two young Tahitians doing nothing in particular, sitting in a hut and smoking, and wrote the local words for it right onto the canvas, Eiaha ohipa, not working. Look through the window behind them and you can spot a small figure at an easel. That is Gauguin himself, painting. He meant the idleness as praise, a life not carved up into working hours the way it was back home, though he was the outsider looking in, and the two figures never once look at him.