Like many artists of German expressionism, Emil Nolde made extensive use of the artistic language of objects that were first viewed in "ethnology" museums and then experienced also on site.

The originality for which the artists became famous in Europe originated, among other things, in the works of numerous unnamed makers and in their societies.
Nolde and his wife Ada kept diaries on their long journey, in which the colonial reality is clearly reflected. In contrast, it does not appear in Nolde's art. 
His famous, so-called "South Sea" paintings were apparently intended to show an intact "paradise"