The Art of Tahiti

The creativity of Tahiti's many skilled artists and craftsman is impressive and varied. Some of the more common examples of work include painting, woodcarving, working with shells and pearls in a thousand ways, and tattooing, and other specialties as well. 

Ancient Art

The ancient art of Tahiti had above all a religious or decorative function. The wooden or stone anthropomorphic statuettes called "ti'i" or tiki had a religious significance, whereas articles for useful or ornamental purposes were simply given a decorative design.

The most coarsely fashioned stone or coral "ti'i" were usually found on the marae or at the boundary of sacred land. In the Austral Islands, where the decorative arts no doubt were most characteristically Polynesian, important articles, usually made of wood, were carved with fine geometric motifs. Human forms, especially on drum bases, are completely original and have nothing in common with the famous tiki, which seems today to be the only symbol of Tahitian art.

Paul Gauguin

The most famous resident artist in Tahiti was Paul Gauguin.  Gauguin spent his childhood in Peru, and began painting in 1873, when he was working as a stockbroker in Paris. Although initially enthusiastic about Impressionism, he broke with it by infusing his image with elements from his imagination. His uses of flattened areas of color, and of non-naturalistic colors make him one of the important forebears in the modernist trend toward expressionism. He also pioneered appreciation of the simple and primitive, an interest that led him to Martinique in 1887, Tahiti in 1891-1892 and 1895-1901, and finally to the Marquesa Islands, where he died.

Contemporary Art

Today a thriving international and local art market exists in these islands which once ignored Gauguin. European painters living in Tahiti, such as Ravello, Saquet, Yrondi and Deloffre, work in many different styles as do Polynesian artists Make, Marere, and Temauri-Masson. The widest selection of art galleries is on the islands of Tahiti, Moorea and Raiatea.