Gauguin: Tales From Paradise

17 — RAD I CAL I M P R E S S I O N I S M ?

ST Y L E AN D E F F EC TS I N T H E ART O F PAU L GAU GU I N Flemming Friborg

33 — F E E D I N G T H E P U R P OS E . GAU GU I N 'S S E ARC H FO R AN ART I ST I C " P R I M I T I VI S M " Line Clausen Pedersen

41 — GAU GU I N 'S I T I N E RAR I E S I N 1 8 89 F RO M T H E U N I VE R SAL E XP OS I T I O N TO T H E LO U VR E M US EU M T H RO U G H T H E PAG E S O F T H E WALT E R AL BU M Maria Grazia Messina

47 — F RO M " P R I M I T I VI S M " TO T H E " P O E T I C S O F E T N O G RAP H Y " Paradigm shifts in the relationship with the "primitive": three key exhibitions, 1984-2012 Simone Menegoi

CATALO GU E O F T H E WO R KS 55 — Introduction 65 — Gauguin's visions and the concept of the primitive 103 — Gauguin's travels – journeys real and imaginary Published by 24 ORE Cultura srl, Milan © 2015 24 ORE Cultura srl, Milan All rights reserved

First edition October 2015 ISBN 978-88-6648-279-6

137 — Gauguin's paintings – technique and vision 149 — The primitive as artistic credo AP P E N D I X 187 — Gauguin's life

Monserrat Pis Marcos

190 — Gauguin's travels

17 — RAD I CAL I M P R E S S I O N I S M ?

ST Y L E AN D E F F EC TS I N T H E ART O F PAU L GAU GU I N Flemming Friborg

33 — F E E D I N G T H E P U R P OS E . GAU GU I N 'S S E ARC H FO R AN ART I ST I C " P R I M I T I VI S M " Line Clausen Pedersen

41 — GAU GU I N 'S I T I N E RAR I E S I N 1 8 89 F RO M T H E U N I VE R SAL E XP OS I T I O N TO T H E LO U VR E M US EU M T H RO U G H T H E PAG E S O F T H E WALT E R AL BU M Maria Grazia Messina

47 — F RO M " P R I M I T I VI S M " TO T H E " P O E T I C S O F E T N O G RAP H Y " Paradigm shifts in the relationship with the "primitive": three key exhibitions, 1984-2012 Simone Menegoi

CATALO GU E O F T H E WO R KS 55 — Introduction 65 — Gauguin's visions and the concept of the primitive 103 — Gauguin's travels – journeys real and imaginary Published by 24 ORE Cultura srl, Milan © 2015 24 ORE Cultura srl, Milan All rights reserved

First edition October 2015 ISBN 978-88-6648-279-6

137 — Gauguin's paintings – technique and vision 149 — The primitive as artistic credo AP P E N D I X 187 — Gauguin's life

Monserrat Pis Marcos

190 — Gauguin's travels

(1) See D. Druick, P. Zegers, Gauguin and the Paris World Fair: Imagining the ‘Studio of the Tropics’, in: Gauguin Polynesia, ed. S. Greub, Munich 2011, pp. 60-79.

(2) O. Mirbeau, in L’Echo de Paris, Feb. 19, 1891 (rehashed

by Gauguin as preface to his auction cat., Feb 24, 1891).

FLEMMING FRIBORG

“Scattered notes, disjointed like dreams, like life, made up entirely of pieces.”

Paul Gauguin, Cahier pour Aline, 1892-93 Paul Gauguin loved the Exposition Universelle of 1889. He went several times to this intense celebration of European civilisation and the wonders of the known world. He saw the Wild West Show of Buffalo Bill, a reproduction of a Javanese temple, the spires and turrets conjuring up Turkish or Persian cities, live dancers performing cult dances, and so forth.(1) The spectacle of the World Exhibition has traditionally been considered the birth-place of his Polynesian adventure, a tale subsequently told by art history in various versions, but all with the basic assumption that this was where it all came into focus and the decision to travel was made. Perhaps so – but the nomadic or malcontent element of Gauguin’s character was there all along, making him fantasise about going somewhere, doing something, fighting and succeeding – and always elsewhere.

“I am staying here, but my departure will always be imminent”, Gauguin stated in late 1888 from Arles, one of the numerous corners of the world which was briefly to nurture his ambitions of radicalising painting. This assertion might stand as a superscription on Gauguin’s life, both as a painter and a human being.

As it happens, Polynesia came to shape the story of Paul Gauguin, not just through the stunning works of art he executed there, but also because this was where he stayed for the longest uninterrupted periods of his life – two sojourns in, respectively, 1891-94 and 18951903. His ideas on “the primitive” and the new radical mission of Impressionism had, however, already assumed a distinct shape long before his departure from Europe in the summer of 1891.

F I G U R E A N D FAC T U R E : THE RISKS OF IMPRESSIONISM

“I would like to have the opportunity of travelling to Tahiti in order to execute a number of paintings from a country whose character and light I wish to capture”, wrote Gauguin in his application for travel funds to the French Minister of Public Education and the Fine Arts on 15th March 1891. Here was an artist who responded to that spirit of colonial progress and optimism of the age of which the Exposition Universelle had been a most visible token. He did indeed receive a grant, and the Polynesian sojourn became reality. When viewed against what we think we know of Gauguin and his “Tahitian adventure” this seems perfectly to match a standard credo: desperate European radical seeking new life and new art beyond the horizon. Staging was ever Gauguin’s forte, and when he organized an auction of his own works on the eve of departing, this was exactly the line along which his farewell was constructed. He had the eminent critic Octave Mirbeau write a preface to the auction catalogue under the heading “The case of a man fleeing from civilization”.(2) Gauguin was making it publicly known that he was off on an adventure. His friends and correspondents would have known of his plans to travel long before. In fact, he had been circling the subject with ever growing frequency and intensity for the past three years, nurturing the notion of the tropics since his first venture in Panama and Martinique in 1887.

However, Gauguin chose Polynesia after some vacillation. In February 1891, he mentions Tahiti as his destination in a letter to his Danish wife, Mette; in April, he tells fellow artist Emile Bernard that he is set on Madagascar, and in June, it’s Tonkin (Vietnam)

RADICAL IMPRESSIONISM? STYLE AND EFFECTS IN THE ART OF PAUL GAUGUIN PAUL GAUGUIN Where do we come from, what are we, where are we going, 1897, detail. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Tompkins Collection.

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(1) See D. Druick, P. Zegers, Gauguin and the Paris World Fair: Imagining the ‘Studio of the Tropics’, in: Gauguin Polynesia, ed. S. Greub, Munich 2011, pp. 60-79.

(2) O. Mirbeau, in L’Echo de Paris, Feb. 19, 1891 (rehashed

by Gauguin as preface to his auction cat., Feb 24, 1891).

FLEMMING FRIBORG

“Scattered notes, disjointed like dreams, like life, made up entirely of pieces.”

Paul Gauguin, Cahier pour Aline, 1892-93 Paul Gauguin loved the Exposition Universelle of 1889. He went several times to this intense celebration of European civilisation and the wonders of the known world. He saw the Wild West Show of Buffalo Bill, a reproduction of a Javanese temple, the spires and turrets conjuring up Turkish or Persian cities, live dancers performing cult dances, and so forth.(1) The spectacle of the World Exhibition has traditionally been considered the birth-place of his Polynesian adventure, a tale subsequently told by art history in various versions, but all with the basic assumption that this was where it all came into focus and the decision to travel was made. Perhaps so – but the nomadic or malcontent element of Gauguin’s character was there all along, making him fantasise about going somewhere, doing something, fighting and succeeding – and always elsewhere.

“I am staying here, but my departure will always be imminent”, Gauguin stated in late 1888 from Arles, one of the numerous corners of the world which was briefly to nurture his ambitions of radicalising painting. This assertion might stand as a superscription on Gauguin’s life, both as a painter and a human being.

As it happens, Polynesia came to shape the story of Paul Gauguin, not just through the stunning works of art he executed there, but also because this was where he stayed for the longest uninterrupted periods of his life – two sojourns in, respectively, 1891-94 and 18951903. His ideas on “the primitive” and the new radical mission of Impressionism had, however, already assumed a distinct shape long before his departure from Europe in the summer of 1891.

F I G U R E A N D FAC T U R E : THE RISKS OF IMPRESSIONISM

“I would like to have the opportunity of travelling to Tahiti in order to execute a number of paintings from a country whose character and light I wish to capture”, wrote Gauguin in his application for travel funds to the French Minister of Public Education and the Fine Arts on 15th March 1891. Here was an artist who responded to that spirit of colonial progress and optimism of the age of which the Exposition Universelle had been a most visible token. He did indeed receive a grant, and the Polynesian sojourn became reality. When viewed against what we think we know of Gauguin and his “Tahitian adventure” this seems perfectly to match a standard credo: desperate European radical seeking new life and new art beyond the horizon. Staging was ever Gauguin’s forte, and when he organized an auction of his own works on the eve of departing, this was exactly the line along which his farewell was constructed. He had the eminent critic Octave Mirbeau write a preface to the auction catalogue under the heading “The case of a man fleeing from civilization”.(2) Gauguin was making it publicly known that he was off on an adventure. His friends and correspondents would have known of his plans to travel long before. In fact, he had been circling the subject with ever growing frequency and intensity for the past three years, nurturing the notion of the tropics since his first venture in Panama and Martinique in 1887.

However, Gauguin chose Polynesia after some vacillation. In February 1891, he mentions Tahiti as his destination in a letter to his Danish wife, Mette; in April, he tells fellow artist Emile Bernard that he is set on Madagascar, and in June, it’s Tonkin (Vietnam)

RADICAL IMPRESSIONISM? STYLE AND EFFECTS IN THE ART OF PAUL GAUGUIN PAUL GAUGUIN Where do we come from, what are we, where are we going, 1897, detail. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Tompkins Collection.

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(1) M. Beerblock and L. Roelandt (eds.), Correspondance complète de Vincent van Gogh, Paris 1960, vol. III, 527 (to Theo, Arles, August 1888).

(2) On Gauguin at the Universal Exposition, see D.W. Druick, P. Zegers, Gauguin and the Paris World Fair: Imagining the “Studio of the Tropics’’, in S. Greub (ed.), Gauguin Polynesia, Copenhagen 2011, pp. 60-77 and M.G. Messina, Gauguin, un esotismo controverso, Florence 2007, ch. IV, “L’Esposizione Universale del 1889”.

(3) H. Dorra, “Emile Bernard et Paul Gauguin”, in Gazette des Beaux Arts, XLV, no. 4, 1955, pp.

259-260.

(4) P. Gauguin, Racontars de Rapin (1902), reprinted in D. Guérin (ed.), Gauguin. Oviri. Ecrits d’un sauvage, Paris 1974, p. 255.

MARIA GRAZIA MESSINA

PAUL GAUGUIN Walter Album, detail. Paris, Louvre, Département des Arts Graphiques, inv. RF 30569 - 80 - folio 46 verso (fonds Musée d'Orsay).

The year 1889 was a pivotal one in Paul Gauguin’s art, both for the definition in his iconographic register of iconographic themes and formal features that were destined to become distinctive and recurrent elements of his work, and for the research conducted on such themes through the use of different materials and techniques – from oil painting to drawing, from ceramic to woodcarving. During his difficult sojourn as a guest of Vincent van Gogh’s in Arles the previous autumn, Gauguin became sharply aware of his work options in harmony with, but especially by contrast to, his friend and rival: he realized the evocative and symbolic value of uniform fields of pure colour (aplats), reducing sense-data to a synthesis of memory and imagination and rejecting the kind of attachment to real-life models stubbornly pursued by van Gogh. Although, as van Gogh himself noted, there was much talk at the time of “doing childlike painting”,(1) the heated, quarrelsome discussions between the two artists – known to us through the surviving correspondence – concern the range of their ideal visual references among the masters of the Romantic and naturalistic generation: Ingres or Delacroix, Daumier or Corot, Degas or Monet. In the first five months of 1889, which Gauguin spent in Paris, this sharp investigation into possible sources of inspiration acquired further depth through the wealth of collections in Parisian museums. It then reached its culmination in late spring through the genuine display of attractions provided by the Universal Exposition, which was inaugurated in the Champ de Mars and the esplanade of Les Invalides on 6 May 1889. Intriguing evidence is provided by a largely ignored source, a graph-paper sketchbook known as the Walter Album. It was begun in the summer of 1888 in Brittany, with a first outline of Vision after the Sermon, followed by motifs drawn

from the local environment; it was then continued in Paris, but starting from last page, with a sketch of the centrepiece of the Ethnographic Museum of the Trocadéro, the famous Peruvian mummy [fig. 1],(2) followed by a kaleidoscopic range of fragmentary visual notes from the artist’s visits to the Louvre and the Exposition pavilions. Judging from these sheets, Gauguin embarked on a tight itinerary that shortly afterwards was followed by his emulator, the painter Emile Bernard. In August, the latter wrote to Gauguin, expressing his dejection at having seen too many works in one go: “The recent hall of the French Primitives at the Louvre, Cluny, the Ethnographic Museum – I’m exhausted by the viewing of this book, which I’ve dashed through in two months”.(3) The range of comparisons that appears to have overwhelmed the young Bernard instead provided a stimulus and challenge for Gauguin. The artist was already well aware of the fact that the only path modern painters could follow lay in a stratified yet metamorphic, rapacious yet brilliant, mingling of visual sources apparently distant in time or space, but ultimately combined through the powerful, subjective imagination of the artist. In his Racontars de Rapin (“Tales of a Dauber”, 1902), Gauguin illustrates the hallmark of his trajectory: “No! A thousand times no! The artist is not born all in one piece. It is much if he adds a new link to the chain”.(4) The defining trait of the rough sketches in the Walter Album is to be found in Gauguin’s drawing style, with its elementary yet turgid and curvy linearity and an intrinsic elasticity capable of grasping and highlighting countenances and attitudes – most commonly in order to then transpose them onto polymorphous ceramics, almost invariably based on figurative sources of inspiration. Even more so than an identification of the sources used for the sketches, the echoing or

GAUGUIN’S ITINERARIES IN 1889 FROM THE UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION TO THE LOUVRE MUSEUM THROUGH THE PAGES OF THE WALTER ALBUM — TA L E S F R O M PA R A D I S E —

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(1) M. Beerblock and L. Roelandt (eds.), Correspondance complète de Vincent van Gogh, Paris 1960, vol. III, 527 (to Theo, Arles, August 1888).

(2) On Gauguin at the Universal Exposition, see D.W. Druick, P. Zegers, Gauguin and the Paris World Fair: Imagining the “Studio of the Tropics’’, in S. Greub (ed.), Gauguin Polynesia, Copenhagen 2011, pp. 60-77 and M.G. Messina, Gauguin, un esotismo controverso, Florence 2007, ch. IV, “L’Esposizione Universale del 1889”.

(3) H. Dorra, “Emile Bernard et Paul Gauguin”, in Gazette des Beaux Arts, XLV, no. 4, 1955, pp.

259-260.

(4) P. Gauguin, Racontars de Rapin (1902), reprinted in D. Guérin (ed.), Gauguin. Oviri. Ecrits d’un sauvage, Paris 1974, p. 255.

MARIA GRAZIA MESSINA

PAUL GAUGUIN Walter Album, detail. Paris, Louvre, Département des Arts Graphiques, inv. RF 30569 - 80 - folio 46 verso (fonds Musée d'Orsay).

The year 1889 was a pivotal one in Paul Gauguin’s art, both for the definition in his iconographic register of iconographic themes and formal features that were destined to become distinctive and recurrent elements of his work, and for the research conducted on such themes through the use of different materials and techniques – from oil painting to drawing, from ceramic to woodcarving. During his difficult sojourn as a guest of Vincent van Gogh’s in Arles the previous autumn, Gauguin became sharply aware of his work options in harmony with, but especially by contrast to, his friend and rival: he realized the evocative and symbolic value of uniform fields of pure colour (aplats), reducing sense-data to a synthesis of memory and imagination and rejecting the kind of attachment to real-life models stubbornly pursued by van Gogh. Although, as van Gogh himself noted, there was much talk at the time of “doing childlike painting”,(1) the heated, quarrelsome discussions between the two artists – known to us through the surviving correspondence – concern the range of their ideal visual references among the masters of the Romantic and naturalistic generation: Ingres or Delacroix, Daumier or Corot, Degas or Monet. In the first five months of 1889, which Gauguin spent in Paris, this sharp investigation into possible sources of inspiration acquired further depth through the wealth of collections in Parisian museums. It then reached its culmination in late spring through the genuine display of attractions provided by the Universal Exposition, which was inaugurated in the Champ de Mars and the esplanade of Les Invalides on 6 May 1889. Intriguing evidence is provided by a largely ignored source, a graph-paper sketchbook known as the Walter Album. It was begun in the summer of 1888 in Brittany, with a first outline of Vision after the Sermon, followed by motifs drawn

from the local environment; it was then continued in Paris, but starting from last page, with a sketch of the centrepiece of the Ethnographic Museum of the Trocadéro, the famous Peruvian mummy [fig. 1],(2) followed by a kaleidoscopic range of fragmentary visual notes from the artist’s visits to the Louvre and the Exposition pavilions. Judging from these sheets, Gauguin embarked on a tight itinerary that shortly afterwards was followed by his emulator, the painter Emile Bernard. In August, the latter wrote to Gauguin, expressing his dejection at having seen too many works in one go: “The recent hall of the French Primitives at the Louvre, Cluny, the Ethnographic Museum – I’m exhausted by the viewing of this book, which I’ve dashed through in two months”.(3) The range of comparisons that appears to have overwhelmed the young Bernard instead provided a stimulus and challenge for Gauguin. The artist was already well aware of the fact that the only path modern painters could follow lay in a stratified yet metamorphic, rapacious yet brilliant, mingling of visual sources apparently distant in time or space, but ultimately combined through the powerful, subjective imagination of the artist. In his Racontars de Rapin (“Tales of a Dauber”, 1902), Gauguin illustrates the hallmark of his trajectory: “No! A thousand times no! The artist is not born all in one piece. It is much if he adds a new link to the chain”.(4) The defining trait of the rough sketches in the Walter Album is to be found in Gauguin’s drawing style, with its elementary yet turgid and curvy linearity and an intrinsic elasticity capable of grasping and highlighting countenances and attitudes – most commonly in order to then transpose them onto polymorphous ceramics, almost invariably based on figurative sources of inspiration. Even more so than an identification of the sources used for the sketches, the echoing or

GAUGUIN’S ITINERARIES IN 1889 FROM THE UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION TO THE LOUVRE MUSEUM THROUGH THE PAGES OF THE WALTER ALBUM — TA L E S F R O M PA R A D I S E —

41

From the very beginning of his career as an artist, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) pursues an original balance between life and art. His quest for originality took him from Paris to Denmark, to Arles, to Brittany – and eventually to Tahiti. In his longing to experience something “primitive”, and in his need to incorporate this phenomenon into his art, Gauguin seems tireless. A mosaic made up of several cultures across

— I HAVE NOT BEEN SPOILED

BY OTHER PEOPLE AND IN FACT I INTEND TO BECOME MORE AND MORE INCOMPREHENSIBLE. —

many ages, of artistic styles little known to the western eye, Gauguin’s artistic ideals could be based on anything from Etruscan pottery, Javanese cult figures or North African rocks. Postcards of works by European masters like Raphael and the Flemish Schools he carried with him, too. The adventure which is Tales from paradise must be thought of as a colourful variety of contemporary input and artistic legacy.

In Gauguin’s work, traditional boundaries such as topography, religious beliefs and cult mix in visual settings not concerned with the world as it is, but rather with the world as it might have been. Anything but simple, the “primitive” exists as a track throughout Gauguin’s work, across media and across motif.

Letter to Emile Bernard,

undated, early September 1889, Pont-Aven

I NTRO D U C TI O N

From the very beginning of his career as an artist, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) pursues an original balance between life and art. His quest for originality took him from Paris to Denmark, to Arles, to Brittany – and eventually to Tahiti. In his longing to experience something “primitive”, and in his need to incorporate this phenomenon into his art, Gauguin seems tireless. A mosaic made up of several cultures across

— I HAVE NOT BEEN SPOILED

BY OTHER PEOPLE AND IN FACT I INTEND TO BECOME MORE AND MORE INCOMPREHENSIBLE. —

many ages, of artistic styles little known to the western eye, Gauguin’s artistic ideals could be based on anything from Etruscan pottery, Javanese cult figures or North African rocks. Postcards of works by European masters like Raphael and the Flemish Schools he carried with him, too. The adventure which is Tales from paradise must be thought of as a colourful variety of contemporary input and artistic legacy.

In Gauguin’s work, traditional boundaries such as topography, religious beliefs and cult mix in visual settings not concerned with the world as it is, but rather with the world as it might have been. Anything but simple, the “primitive” exists as a track throughout Gauguin’s work, across media and across motif.

Letter to Emile Bernard,

undated, early September 1889, Pont-Aven

I NTRO D U C TI O N

CAMILLE PISSARRO Landscape in February, 1878 Oil on canvas, 73 × 54 cm Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (on long-term loan from the Statens Museum for Kunst of Copenhagen)

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CAMILLE PISSARRO Landscape from the Pontoise Area, c. 1880 Tempera on canvas, 30 × 22 cm Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (on long-term loan from the Statens Museum for Kunst of Copenhagen)

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CAMILLE PISSARRO Landscape in February, 1878 Oil on canvas, 73 × 54 cm Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (on long-term loan from the Statens Museum for Kunst of Copenhagen)

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CAMILLE PISSARRO Landscape from the Pontoise Area, c. 1880 Tempera on canvas, 30 × 22 cm Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek (on long-term loan from the Statens Museum for Kunst of Copenhagen)

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PAUL GAUGUIN Jug with Delacroix Motif of Algerian Horseman, 1886‑87 Unglazed stoneware, decorated with slip, glaze and gold, 18 × 16.5 × 15.5 cm Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

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PAUL GAUGUIN Jug with Delacroix Motif of Algerian Horseman, 1886‑87 Unglazed stoneware, decorated with slip, glaze and gold, 18 × 16.5 × 15.5 cm Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

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PAUL GAUGUIN Reclining Woman with a Fan, c. 1889 Oak wood, painted, 35 × 45 cm Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek PAUL GAUGUIN Eve with the Serpent and other Animals, c. 1889 Oak wood, painted, 34.7 × 20.5 cm Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

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PAUL GAUGUIN Reclining Woman with a Fan, c. 1889 Oak wood, painted, 35 × 45 cm Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek PAUL GAUGUIN Eve with the Serpent and other Animals, c. 1889 Oak wood, painted, 34.7 × 20.5 cm Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

112

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PAUL GAUGUIN’s Intimate Journals, cover, 1921 Translated by Van Wyck Brooks, preface by Emile Gauguin, 26.1 × 19.5 cm San Francisco, Fine Arts Museum, gift of Edward DeWitt Taylor Work not on display

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PAUL GAUGUIN’s Intimate Journals, cover, 1921 Translated by Van Wyck Brooks, preface by Emile Gauguin, 26.1 × 19.5 cm San Francisco, Fine Arts Museum, gift of Edward DeWitt Taylor Work not on display

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PAUL GAUGUIN Landscape from Arles, 1888 Oil on canvas, 72.5 × 92 cm Stockholm, Nationalmuseum

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PAUL GAUGUIN Landscape from Arles, 1888 Oil on canvas, 72.5 × 92 cm Stockholm, Nationalmuseum

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In January 1894, upon his return from his first voyage to the South Seas, Gauguin rented a studio in Paris, painted the walls bright yellow and opened it to friends and fellow painters. Mahana no Atua (Day of the God) was painted during the hiatus between his two stays in Tahiti, evidencing that for Gauguin it was no longer relevant where his works were executed. They were based on dream and memory, supported by certain fundamental observations of nature. What counted now was to be able to keep the stylistic features of his Tahitian exploits flowing in his art, to hold on to his trademark as radical innovator.

When Gauguin arrived at Tahiti, he found a cultural hybrid between a French colony and a sprawling civilization in transit from old habits to new ones. The artist set about forging his own personal vision in which Polynesia played a key role – not as a cultural

or topographical entity, but as an exotic backdrop against which he could project his artistic themes.

In this painting, a large idol of Hina dominates the centre. To the right, some women perform the upa upa, an ancient dance forbidden by the colonial authorities. The three figures by the water allegedly symbolise birth, life and death, essentially themes and sentiments in direct succession of Gauguin’s Breton work of the 1880s.

At the time of painting this work in the summer of 1894, Gauguin worked intensely on the manuscript of Noa Noa (“Fragrant”). This book was a highly romanticized account of his life in Tahiti, intended to convey the meaning of his paintings to a Western viewership without compromising his basic ideas of mysticism and the primitive as central to a renewal of art.

DAY O F TH E GO D (MAHANA N O ATUA) — 1894 PAUL GAUGUIN Mahana no Atua (The Day of the God), 1894 Oil on canvas, 68.3 × 91.5 cm Chicago, The Art Institute, Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection

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In January 1894, upon his return from his first voyage to the South Seas, Gauguin rented a studio in Paris, painted the walls bright yellow and opened it to friends and fellow painters. Mahana no Atua (Day of the God) was painted during the hiatus between his two stays in Tahiti, evidencing that for Gauguin it was no longer relevant where his works were executed. They were based on dream and memory, supported by certain fundamental observations of nature. What counted now was to be able to keep the stylistic features of his Tahitian exploits flowing in his art, to hold on to his trademark as radical innovator.

When Gauguin arrived at Tahiti, he found a cultural hybrid between a French colony and a sprawling civilization in transit from old habits to new ones. The artist set about forging his own personal vision in which Polynesia played a key role – not as a cultural

or topographical entity, but as an exotic backdrop against which he could project his artistic themes.

In this painting, a large idol of Hina dominates the centre. To the right, some women perform the upa upa, an ancient dance forbidden by the colonial authorities. The three figures by the water allegedly symbolise birth, life and death, essentially themes and sentiments in direct succession of Gauguin’s Breton work of the 1880s.

At the time of painting this work in the summer of 1894, Gauguin worked intensely on the manuscript of Noa Noa (“Fragrant”). This book was a highly romanticized account of his life in Tahiti, intended to convey the meaning of his paintings to a Western viewership without compromising his basic ideas of mysticism and the primitive as central to a renewal of art.

DAY O F TH E GO D (MAHANA N O ATUA) — 1894 PAUL GAUGUIN Mahana no Atua (The Day of the God), 1894 Oil on canvas, 68.3 × 91.5 cm Chicago, The Art Institute, Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection

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M O N S E R R AT P I S M A R C O S

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was born in Paris on June 7th, 1848. His parents were Pierre Guillaume Clovis Gauguin, editor at Le National, and Aline Marie Chazal, daughter of the socialist revolutionary and female activist Flora Tristan. In August 1849 the family relocated to Lima, Peru, where some of Aline’s relatives still lived. Paul’s father perished during the voyage. Aline and her two children (Gauguin’s sister, Marie, had been born on April 29th, 1847) returned to France in late 1854 or early 1855 and settled in Orléans. In 1862 Paul joined his mother in Paris, where she had been living already for a year, in order to prepare his entrance exam at the Naval Academy.

However, the young boy did not do well at the examinations and therefore in 1864 he returned to a boarding school in Orléans for another year. Paul was not on very good terms with his mother and their relationship deteriorated fairly quickly during these early years.

In December 1865, already too old to enter the Navy, Gauguin joined the merchant marines and set sail for Rio de Janeiro on board of the Luzitano. Between 1865 and 1871 he travelled to Brazil (twice), Cardiff, Valparaíso, Iquique, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, Bastia, Naples, Corfu, the Dalmatian Coast, Trieste, Venice, Bergen, crossed the Arctic Circle, Edinburgh, London and Copenhagen. In the meantime, Gauguin’s mother died in July 1867, leaving her children a substantial inheritance that Paul would only be allowed to manage with his coming of age in 1869. Gustave Arosa, a friend of Aline and an art collector, became Paul’s legal guardian. In July 1870 France declared war on Prussia and Paul remained offshore until his discharge from military service in April 1871. He returned to Paris immediately afterwards.

In 1872, through the intercession of the Arosa brothers, Gauguin found a job at the financial firm Bertin,

who hired him as a stockbroker. There he met Emile Schuffenecker, who would also become an artist and, more importantly, a close friend and a constant supporter until they fell out almost two decades later. Also in 1872, Gauguin encountered a young Danish woman, Mette Sophie Gad, who would soon become his wife.

1873 is a turning point for Gauguin. An artistic career was under way: In 1874 he met Camille Pissarro, one of his earliest mentors and sources of inspiration, and in 1876 he showed his work for the first and only time at the Salon, the official art exhibition of the French Academy of Fine Arts. Probably at the end of that year or the beginning of 1877 Gauguin lost his job with Bertin and started devoting more time to painting. In 1879 he found a new job at the banker André Boudon and was invited by Edgar Degas and Pissarro to exhibit at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition. He also started attending the gatherings at the Café de la Nouvelle Athènes, meeting Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir and, of course, frequenting Degas and Pissarro. In fact, that same summer he visited the latter in Pontoise.

Between 1880 and 1882 Gauguin exhibited with the Impressionists each year while changing jobs and making some small profit from the sales of his works.

In 1882, the crash of the stock market had a negative impact on Gauguin’s economic situation, making him consider the possibility of quitting his financial career altogether and becoming a full-time artist. A year later, and after spending three weeks with Pissarro in Osny, he listed himself as an artist-painter on the birth certificate of his fifth child, Paul (Pola) Rollon.

In the summer of 1884, discouraged by the precarious finances of the family, Mette and two of her children left for Copenhagen while Gauguin stayed behind with the other three. In October Mette moved permanently

GAU G U I N ’ S L I F E

PAUL GAUGUIN Self-Portrait, 1885, detail.

Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum

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M O N S E R R AT P I S M A R C O S

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was born in Paris on June 7th, 1848. His parents were Pierre Guillaume Clovis Gauguin, editor at Le National, and Aline Marie Chazal, daughter of the socialist revolutionary and female activist Flora Tristan. In August 1849 the family relocated to Lima, Peru, where some of Aline’s relatives still lived. Paul’s father perished during the voyage. Aline and her two children (Gauguin’s sister, Marie, had been born on April 29th, 1847) returned to France in late 1854 or early 1855 and settled in Orléans. In 1862 Paul joined his mother in Paris, where she had been living already for a year, in order to prepare his entrance exam at the Naval Academy.

However, the young boy did not do well at the examinations and therefore in 1864 he returned to a boarding school in Orléans for another year. Paul was not on very good terms with his mother and their relationship deteriorated fairly quickly during these early years.

In December 1865, already too old to enter the Navy, Gauguin joined the merchant marines and set sail for Rio de Janeiro on board of the Luzitano. Between 1865 and 1871 he travelled to Brazil (twice), Cardiff, Valparaíso, Iquique, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, Bastia, Naples, Corfu, the Dalmatian Coast, Trieste, Venice, Bergen, crossed the Arctic Circle, Edinburgh, London and Copenhagen. In the meantime, Gauguin’s mother died in July 1867, leaving her children a substantial inheritance that Paul would only be allowed to manage with his coming of age in 1869. Gustave Arosa, a friend of Aline and an art collector, became Paul’s legal guardian. In July 1870 France declared war on Prussia and Paul remained offshore until his discharge from military service in April 1871. He returned to Paris immediately afterwards.

In 1872, through the intercession of the Arosa brothers, Gauguin found a job at the financial firm Bertin,

who hired him as a stockbroker. There he met Emile Schuffenecker, who would also become an artist and, more importantly, a close friend and a constant supporter until they fell out almost two decades later. Also in 1872, Gauguin encountered a young Danish woman, Mette Sophie Gad, who would soon become his wife.

1873 is a turning point for Gauguin. An artistic career was under way: In 1874 he met Camille Pissarro, one of his earliest mentors and sources of inspiration, and in 1876 he showed his work for the first and only time at the Salon, the official art exhibition of the French Academy of Fine Arts. Probably at the end of that year or the beginning of 1877 Gauguin lost his job with Bertin and started devoting more time to painting. In 1879 he found a new job at the banker André Boudon and was invited by Edgar Degas and Pissarro to exhibit at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition. He also started attending the gatherings at the Café de la Nouvelle Athènes, meeting Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir and, of course, frequenting Degas and Pissarro. In fact, that same summer he visited the latter in Pontoise.

Between 1880 and 1882 Gauguin exhibited with the Impressionists each year while changing jobs and making some small profit from the sales of his works.

In 1882, the crash of the stock market had a negative impact on Gauguin’s economic situation, making him consider the possibility of quitting his financial career altogether and becoming a full-time artist. A year later, and after spending three weeks with Pissarro in Osny, he listed himself as an artist-painter on the birth certificate of his fifth child, Paul (Pola) Rollon.

In the summer of 1884, discouraged by the precarious finances of the family, Mette and two of her children left for Copenhagen while Gauguin stayed behind with the other three. In October Mette moved permanently

GAU G U I N ’ S L I F E

PAUL GAUGUIN Self-Portrait, 1885, detail.

Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum

— TA L E S F R O M PA R A D I S E —

187