In the spring of 1891, the artist, Paul Gauguin left France on his first journey to Tahiti. During his stay there, he achieved an intensification of colour and formal simplicity in his painting. In the more than 200 paintings he produced in the South Pacific, Gauguin was primarily concerned with expressing his own condition and his ideas about the world, including his hopes for a reconciliation between civilization and nature, culture and primitivism. This is particularly clear in his book Noa Noa, which he wrote and illustrated to provide his audience in far-off Paris with an introduction to his paintings. Eckhard Hollmann presents a view of Gauguin as a rebel and outsider in art, not forgetting the French painter's impressive self-dramatizations, the sole purpose of which was to establish a socially respected position for the artist. An analysis of Gauguin's paintings, his living conditions, and his writings casts new light on his significance as the prophet of a new form of art and pioneer of modernism.