In Te raau rahi (The large tree) Gauguin depicts his new island home of Tahiti as a place of abundance. Notice how many different species of plants he includes in the scene, from the two trees in the foreground, to the coconut palms in the background, and the variety of smaller plants that fill the composition. The vertical lines created by the trees are balanced by the horizontals and diagonals of the Tahitian thatched roof hut, or fare, which anchors and encloses the background of the work.
All five women in this scene appear at rest. Look at the two women who sit underneath the large tree: the seated figure at left, propped up on one arm, has the same pose as that of the nearby painting Tahitian women. Her companion appears to be eating fruit, bringing her hand up to her mouth. Gauguin often drew on biblical imagery, such as Eve eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden. Ironically, he used the theme to convey his narrative that Tahiti was a paradise that vanished after the introduction of Christianity.
Religious imagery is just one part of how Gauguin constructed this scene: he drew on a wide range of references, and often used postcards as reminders of works that he had seen during his travels. Consider, for example, that you could almost draw a straight line underneath the four women in the foreground of the painting. This linear arrangement of figures may have drawn inspiration from the architectural friezes encountered by Gauguin at the 1889 Exposition Universal in Paris. He owned photographs of the carved stone relief sculptures from the temple at Borobudur in Java, and the standing woman appears in almost perfect profile, resembling the Egyptian frieze figures also admired by Gauguin.
The flatness and linear qualities of Te raau rahi (The large tree) stand in contrast to Street in Tahiti. The urban scene has a remarkable plunging perspective, with the diagonal lines of the road, hut and embankment all coming to a point on a red shrub in the distance. These lines of perspective provide depth, whereas the mountain ranges that compose the top half of the image appear flat as they are composed of relatively uniform strokes of paint.
Both paintings are composed using multiple drawings found in Gauguin’s sketchbooks, details such as the two figures that walk into the distance. Other parts refer to the work of his peers: the woman in the doorway of the hut is likely to modelled on a drawing by Edgar Degas titled Dancers resting 1881-85.
