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Why did Paul Gauguin move to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands?

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Self-portrait painting by Paul Gauguin showing the artist with a mustache, yellow halo, and stylized plants against a vivid orange background with green and red fruit. — Paul Gauguin Self-portrait by Paul Gauguin, oil on wood, 1889; in the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 79.2 × 51.3 cm.

Paul Gauguin moved to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands in September 1901 because he was increasingly disgusted by the rising Western influence in Tahiti. Seeking a more remote environment to escape these colonial pressures, he relocated to the island to further his pursuit of a "primitive" expression of spiritual and emotional states.12