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On the Cover
On the Cover
Cover image: Gauguin, Paul (1848-1903). Two Tahitian Women. 1899. Oil on canvas. Gift of William Church Osborn, 1949. Image copyright Ó The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Last June I learned that earlier in the year a puritanical warrior had attempted to destroy this painting, her reason being that it was ‘‘homosexual’’ and its nudity was ‘‘bad for the children to look at’’. She turned out to be a felon previously convicted of trespassing, assaulting and other offenses. Emotional responses to the art of Gauguin have plagued commentaries about him inside and outside the art world. He has been labeled an anti-feminist, a colonialist, a self-promoting con artist and an inventor of myths, but many others have viewed him as a genial painter that represents the best of the post-impressionist period.
A8
If Gauguin’s art has been described in different categories it is because he explored and invented different styles of painting. As an artist he cultivated the image of a genius that despised bourgeois life and took refuge in the idyllic world of the Polynesian islands. By the time he left Paris for Tahiti he had done a lot of travel. He lived in Peru in his youth, then worked as a seaman and later became friend of Pissarro and C ezanne in Paris and painted in their studio while making a comfortable living as a stockbroker. After the stock market crash in 1882 he dedicated himself full time to painting, left his wife and kids with his in-laws and, after a short period of painting on the Caribbean island of Martinique, left for Tahiti. He was expecting to live in a tropical uncontaminated paradise but found the primitive culture corrupted by the work of missionaries and the colonial French. He came back to Paris in 1893 and did some painting in the ‘‘primitive’’ style. His dealer, Theo Van Gogh, introduced him to his brother Vincent who suggested Gauguin joins him in Arles. During their two months there they fought frequently and their plans for a ‘‘studio of the South’’ evaporated. In 1901 he moved to the Hion Oa island in the Marquesas hoping to encounter the paradise he had not found in Tahiti. By then he was wanted by the French government for tax evasion and had poor health. He died in Hion Oa of complications of syphilis never achieving in life the recognition that would be given to him years later. Art critics have pointed out that Gauguin did not paint the people or the places that were then Tahiti; that he was just ‘‘making things up’’. While it is true that he was not living in a lush tropic inhabited by innocent longing beauties, I do not see why this would place any different value on his art. Gauguin, like so many artists, invites viewers to his paradise. He tells his story showing halfnaked natives in lush surroundings. He has little interest in the perspective of the composition. His women are two-dimensional and express nothing to the outside viewer, withdrawn into their unknowable thoughts. There is a passive sensuality about the whole scene. Gauguin defines the mood of the scene through his magnificent use and combination of unrealistic color. This is the primitive paradise he wanted to create. R. Berguer
Cover image: Gauguin, Paul (1848-1903). Two Tahitian Women. 1899. Oil on canvas. Gift of William Church Osborn, 1949. Image copyright Ó The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Last June I learned that earlier in the year a puritanical warrior had attempted to destroy this painting, her reason being that it was ‘‘homosexual’’ and its nudity was ‘‘bad for the children to look at’’. She turned out to be a felon previously convicted of trespassing, assaulting and other offenses. Emotional responses to the art of Gauguin have plagued commentaries about him inside and outside the art world. He has been labeled an anti-feminist, a colonialist, a self-promoting con artist and an inventor of myths, but many others have viewed him as a genial painter that represents the best of the post-impressionist period.
A8
If Gauguin’s art has been described in different categories it is because he explored and invented different styles of painting. As an artist he cultivated the image of a genius that despised bourgeois life and took refuge in the idyllic world of the Polynesian islands. By the time he left Paris for Tahiti he had done a lot of travel. He lived in Peru in his youth, then worked as a seaman and later became friend of Pissarro and C ezanne in Paris and painted in their studio while making a comfortable living as a stockbroker. After the stock market crash in 1882 he dedicated himself full time to painting, left his wife and kids with his in-laws and, after a short period of painting on the Caribbean island of Martinique, left for Tahiti. He was expecting to live in a tropical uncontaminated paradise but found the primitive culture corrupted by the work of missionaries and the colonial French. He came back to Paris in 1893 and did some painting in the ‘‘primitive’’ style. His dealer, Theo Van Gogh, introduced him to his brother Vincent who suggested Gauguin joins him in Arles. During their two months there they fought frequently and their plans for a ‘‘studio of the South’’ evaporated. In 1901 he moved to the Hion Oa island in the Marquesas hoping to encounter the paradise he had not found in Tahiti. By then he was wanted by the French government for tax evasion and had poor health. He died in Hion Oa of complications of syphilis never achieving in life the recognition that would be given to him years later. Art critics have pointed out that Gauguin did not paint the people or the places that were then Tahiti; that he was just ‘‘making things up’’. While it is true that he was not living in a lush tropic inhabited by innocent longing beauties, I do not see why this would place any different value on his art. Gauguin, like so many artists, invites viewers to his paradise. He tells his story showing halfnaked natives in lush surroundings. He has little interest in the perspective of the composition. His women are two-dimensional and express nothing to the outside viewer, withdrawn into their unknowable thoughts. There is a passive sensuality about the whole scene. Gauguin defines the mood of the scene through his magnificent use and combination of unrealistic color. This is the primitive paradise he wanted to create. R. Berguer