Girl in Bow of Canoe Spreading Out Her Loin-Cloth for a Sail, Samoa 1895 - 1896

John La Farge painted 'Girl in Bow of Canoe Spreading Out Her Loin-Cloth for a Sail, Samoa’ on board using watercolor and graphite, yet the exact date is unknown. La Farge traveled to the South Pacific in the late 19th century, a period marked by European and American expansionism. This work offers a glimpse into the colonial gaze, where the artist, an outsider, interprets the local culture through his own lens. The depiction of a young Samoan woman, standing nearly nude in a canoe, holding up her ‘loincloth’ is both a study of light and form, and a loaded portrayal of indigenous life. The artist seems to reduce the woman to an aesthetic object. While La Farge may have been interested in capturing the beauty and grace of the Samoan people, his work is inseparable from the power dynamics inherent in cross-cultural representation. We can only speculate about the woman's own understanding as she may have regarded her participation in the artist’s work.