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In a cultural perspective analysing the articulations between practical representations and geographic realities, this article studies the association between voyage and image: images that invite to leave, images that are brought back. The exemplary case of Tahiti – an important place in the occidental geographic imaginary – shows how the travellers (Gaugin, Loti) have produced and consume images, and how these images have formed a screen between the visitor and the Tahitian reality. After Gaugin, the impregnation of the images taken from his paintings is such that Tahiti becomes undissociable from his work. From then on, the traveller stats to see Tahitian landscapes as paintings by Gaugin, while tour operators endeavour to present Tahiti according to Westerners’ expectations, that is to say like Gaugin’s paintings.