The Pinks and Purples Of an Exotic Eden.

In the 18th century, artists went to Rome. Or, if they could afford it, on a whole Grand Tour of Europe. By the 19th century, art travel had gone global: the French painter Eugene Delacroix went to North Africa, the Americans Frederic Church and Winslow Homer to South America and the Caribbean. And John La Farge, a New Yorker who grew up in a French-speaking family, headed for the South Pacific, spending nearly a year there before Gauguin had even arrived. Best known for his stained-glass windows, Mr. La Farge (1835-1910) was also an illustrator, painter, inventor and writer. He had been to Paris, where he studied with Thomas Couture, and in 1886 to Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]