Two women appear at the center and right of the scene, one seated on a dark rock with her back turned, the other wading nude into the sea, her arms raised as if to steady herself in the water. A large tree trunk curves diagonally across the left side, its branches and white leaves arching over the figures and dividing the composition into two sections. The colors are intense and non-naturalistic: the sand in the foreground is painted in broad swathes of lilac and pink, scattered with vivid orange flowers.

The sea is rendered in deep greens and blues, with pale turquoise and white waves breaking near the shore. The seated woman wears a dark blue pareo patterned with yellow, which she gathers around her waist, while the other woman is unclothed, her long hair painted a striking blue-black. The brushwork is bold and flat, with areas of pure color outlined by darker contours, lending a decorative, almost mosaic-like effect to the surface.

Orange foliage forms a band across the middle ground, separating the foreground from the water and reinforcing the painting’s horizontal structure. The figures’ gestures are relaxed and unselfconscious, and their faces are seen in profile or turned away, focusing attention on their bodies and the surrounding landscape. Light falls evenly across the scene, with little modeling or shadow, emphasizing the painting’s artificial color scheme and flatness. Fatata te Miti was created by Paul Gauguin in 1892.

The painting is classified as genre art and depicts women, the sea, a wind wave, nudity, a pareo, and a tree.