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Why was Paul Gauguin disappointed when he arrived in Tahiti in 1891?

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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.

When Paul Gauguin arrived in Tahiti in 1891, he was disappointed because the reality of the island did not match the romanticized image he had formed, which was influenced in part by Pierre Loti’s novel Le Mariage de Loti (1880).1

Gauguin had envisioned Tahiti as an untouched paradise, but upon his arrival, he found that French colonization had significantly corrupted the local culture. In response to this disillusionment, he sought to immerse himself in what he perceived to be the authentic aspects of Tahitian life, incorporating local titles, Oceanic iconography, and spiritual themes into his artwork to distance himself from Western conventions.1