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Oviri: Écrits d'un sauvage
"Je suis un grand artiste et je le sais. C'est parce que je le suis que j'ai tellement enduré de souffrances. Pour poursuivre ma voie, sinon je me considérerai comme un brigand. Ce que je suis du reste pour beaucoup de personnes [...] Ce qui me chagrine le plus c'est moins la misère que les empêchements perpétuels à mon art que je ne puis faire comme je le sens [...] Je sais depuis longtemps ce que je fais et pourquoi je le fais. Mon centre artistique est dans mon cerveau et pas ailleurs et je suis fort parce que je ne suis jamais dérouté par les autres et que je fais ce qui est en moi." Paul Gauguin.
352 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
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308 people want to read
About the author
Paul Gauguin
325 books50 followersGauguin was a financially successful stockbroker and self-taught amateur artist when he began collecting works by the impressionists in the 1870s. Inspired by their example, he took up the study of painting under Camille Pissarro. Pissarro and Edgar Degas arranged for him to show his early painting efforts in the fourth impressionist exhibition in 1879 (as well as the annual impressionist exhibitions held through 1882). In 1882, after a stock market crash and recession rendered him unemployed and broke, Gauguin decided to abandon the business world to pursue life as an artist full-time.
In 1886, Gauguin went to Pont-Aven in Brittany, a rugged land of fervently religious people far from the urban sophistication of Paris. There he forged a new style. He was at the center of a group of avant-garde artists who dedicated themselves to synthétisme, ordering and simplifying sensory data to its fundamentals. Gauguin's greatest innovation was his use of color, which he employed not for its ability to mimic nature but for its emotive qualities. He applied it in broad flat areas outlined with dark paint, which tended to flatten space and abstract form. This flattening of space and symbolic use of color would be important influences on early twentieth-century artists.
In Brittany, Gauguin had hoped to tap the expressive potential he believed rested in a more rural, even "primitive" culture. Over the next several years he traveled often between Paris and Brittany, spending time also in Panama and Martinique. In 1891 his rejection of European urban values led him to Tahiti, where he expected to find an unspoiled culture, exotic and sensual. Instead, he was confronted with a world already transformed by western missionaries and colonial rule. In large measure, Gauguin had to invent the world he sought, not only in paintings but with woodcarvings, graphics, and written works. As he struggled with ways to express the questions of life and death, knowledge and evil that preoccupied him, he interwove the images and mythology of island life with those of the west and other cultures. After a trip to France (1893 to 1895), Gauguin returned to spend his remaining years, marred by illness and depression, in the South Seas.
In 1886, Gauguin went to Pont-Aven in Brittany, a rugged land of fervently religious people far from the urban sophistication of Paris. There he forged a new style. He was at the center of a group of avant-garde artists who dedicated themselves to synthétisme, ordering and simplifying sensory data to its fundamentals. Gauguin's greatest innovation was his use of color, which he employed not for its ability to mimic nature but for its emotive qualities. He applied it in broad flat areas outlined with dark paint, which tended to flatten space and abstract form. This flattening of space and symbolic use of color would be important influences on early twentieth-century artists.
In Brittany, Gauguin had hoped to tap the expressive potential he believed rested in a more rural, even "primitive" culture. Over the next several years he traveled often between Paris and Brittany, spending time also in Panama and Martinique. In 1891 his rejection of European urban values led him to Tahiti, where he expected to find an unspoiled culture, exotic and sensual. Instead, he was confronted with a world already transformed by western missionaries and colonial rule. In large measure, Gauguin had to invent the world he sought, not only in paintings but with woodcarvings, graphics, and written works. As he struggled with ways to express the questions of life and death, knowledge and evil that preoccupied him, he interwove the images and mythology of island life with those of the west and other cultures. After a trip to France (1893 to 1895), Gauguin returned to spend his remaining years, marred by illness and depression, in the South Seas.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 4, 2013
I picked up Writings of a Savage again this evening, and realized this is one of those books you return to, especially if you like books where a master just opens up and shows what he's aiming for in his painting and in his life. If you don't have the guts to leave your family, or you wonder where that leaves a man, this is a fine read to shed some light on the mystery. Reading it at times is like being initiated into some voodoo ceremony. Other things about Gauguin that shine through his raw observations are his rancor, his refusal to repent, his almost satanic embracing of the obscure, then his ruthless distance with himself in pursuing his life as a "civilized savage".
For anyone who likes reading their books randomly, starting in the middle then jumping all over the place, this can be read any which way without losing the trail.
For anyone who likes reading their books randomly, starting in the middle then jumping all over the place, this can be read any which way without losing the trail.
December 5, 2024
No se le pueden dar cinco estrellas a una recolección de memorias personales y subjetivas de un individuo, pero las de Gauguin rozan casi la perfección objetiva en su subjetividad. Gauguin ofrece una visión del cansancio vital del Mundo Moderno, sensación muy similar a la que podemos vivir hoy. Sus pensamientos, gozan de pensamiento crítico contemporáneo y nos permite realmente sentir como de cercanos somos, en realidad, con nuestros antepasados.
Con Gauguin también te ríes. El hombre que es un mito, y el mito que hizo al hombre: no sabemos que fue antes, pero desde luego, participó de su propia creación para la posteridad. Sea como fuere, una amistad surge tras leer sus líneas. Te hace sentir que, cuando veas una de sus obras, estarás observando la obra de un amigo, y eso te hará sentir especial.
Con Gauguin también te ríes. El hombre que es un mito, y el mito que hizo al hombre: no sabemos que fue antes, pero desde luego, participó de su propia creación para la posteridad. Sea como fuere, una amistad surge tras leer sus líneas. Te hace sentir que, cuando veas una de sus obras, estarás observando la obra de un amigo, y eso te hará sentir especial.
June 9, 2020
Like the correspondence between Vincent and his brother, Gauguin's writings show what we missed, did not see, did not understand, and once again we must admit we know so little about what we think know best. Gauguin writes with verve, without shadows or halftones. His colors are frank and sharp like his opinions. A feverish, enthusiastic eloquence which makes the reading of these chosen excerpts much more overwhelming than a biography. Read this book and hear Gauguin speak in your ear. A wonder.
January 4, 2025
Une perspective touchante proposée sous le format édité d’une biographie épistolaire de Gauguin. On y trouve des échanges avec sa femme distante Mette et ses proches, notamment l’écrivain Charles Morice (premier biographe dé Gauguin) et le peintre George-Daniel de Monfreid. L’ouvrage est aussi parsemé de réflexions diverses de Gauguin sur des thèmes tant liés à l’art qu’à la culture des peuples d’Océanie dans lesquels il réclame et revendique une profondeur ignorée par le public selon lui : combien d’heures à réfléchir et se construire une opinion sur le monde pour ensuite le peindre, le modeler ? Une opinion alimentée et mise en perspective par son introduction progressive aux cultures maoris et à leur contact.
De nombreuses lettres qu’il rédige au cours de sa vie qu’il semble avoir abordée avec l’espérance comme fil directeur. En effet, quels que soient les événements et les situations, qu’il se trouve au début de sa vie quand il vient de construire un petit capital en bourse ou bien dans le creux de sa période insulaire, ni désespoir profond ni abandon ne sont perceptibles dans sa prose. Gauguin se livre admirablement sur cette destinée artiste douloureuse : « Enfin, résignons-nous et advienne que pourra et peut-être qu’un jour, quand mon art aura crevé les yeux à tout le monde, alors un homme enthousiaste me ramassera dans le ruisseau » (juillet 1886, À Mette, Pont-Aven).
Le peintre y livre une défense passionnée de son art, notamment dans ses échanges avec sa femme Mette, à travers ses lettres qui concèdent sa misère matérielle, l’amenant à presque jeûner pendant parfois trois jours, comme le revers d’un potentiel artistique incompris. Les sentiments sont parfois bas et la considération de l’adversité est souvent livrée en termes crus mais une douce résignation transparaît inévitablement dans chacune de ses correspondances.
Oviri (« sauvage, habitant de la forêt » en tahitien) revêt un sens de plus en plus lourd au fur et à mesure que l’on avance chronologiquement dans les correspondances de l’artiste. Paris lui est insupportable, il y est un étranger et croit trouver refuge à Pont-Aven, puis en Martinique ou encore à Taboga avant d’orienter son esprit vers l’Océanie. Il y cherche tant une inspiration qu’un moyen d’être reconnu autrement que comme un paria aux toiles inintéressantes et au mode de vie confinant à la mendicité.
Néanmoins, ses dernières correspondances, même si elles n’achèvent pas une espérance et une détermination admirables, n’en demeurent pas moins imprégnées d’un goût de défaite. Où qu’il se soit jamais rendu, il s’est trouvé exclu tant par la force des choses que par son sentiment d’appartenir à un « ailleurs ». On peut être amenés à considérer assez trivialement que le peintre-sauvage avait au final une forêt bien plus conséquente à défricher en lui-même.
De nombreuses lettres qu’il rédige au cours de sa vie qu’il semble avoir abordée avec l’espérance comme fil directeur. En effet, quels que soient les événements et les situations, qu’il se trouve au début de sa vie quand il vient de construire un petit capital en bourse ou bien dans le creux de sa période insulaire, ni désespoir profond ni abandon ne sont perceptibles dans sa prose. Gauguin se livre admirablement sur cette destinée artiste douloureuse : « Enfin, résignons-nous et advienne que pourra et peut-être qu’un jour, quand mon art aura crevé les yeux à tout le monde, alors un homme enthousiaste me ramassera dans le ruisseau » (juillet 1886, À Mette, Pont-Aven).
Le peintre y livre une défense passionnée de son art, notamment dans ses échanges avec sa femme Mette, à travers ses lettres qui concèdent sa misère matérielle, l’amenant à presque jeûner pendant parfois trois jours, comme le revers d’un potentiel artistique incompris. Les sentiments sont parfois bas et la considération de l’adversité est souvent livrée en termes crus mais une douce résignation transparaît inévitablement dans chacune de ses correspondances.
Oviri (« sauvage, habitant de la forêt » en tahitien) revêt un sens de plus en plus lourd au fur et à mesure que l’on avance chronologiquement dans les correspondances de l’artiste. Paris lui est insupportable, il y est un étranger et croit trouver refuge à Pont-Aven, puis en Martinique ou encore à Taboga avant d’orienter son esprit vers l’Océanie. Il y cherche tant une inspiration qu’un moyen d’être reconnu autrement que comme un paria aux toiles inintéressantes et au mode de vie confinant à la mendicité.
Néanmoins, ses dernières correspondances, même si elles n’achèvent pas une espérance et une détermination admirables, n’en demeurent pas moins imprégnées d’un goût de défaite. Où qu’il se soit jamais rendu, il s’est trouvé exclu tant par la force des choses que par son sentiment d’appartenir à un « ailleurs ». On peut être amenés à considérer assez trivialement que le peintre-sauvage avait au final une forêt bien plus conséquente à défricher en lui-même.
November 2, 2022
Paul Gauguin was a man with a moon and sixpence. He was an artist in an endless pursuit of the rising sun at the dawn of a day with a flaming glory in dazzling magnificence. He was an intellectual with a wealth of knowledge drawn from a wide range of reading and classical Jesuit education. Gauguin was a man of irony with contrasting colors reflected on the soul's spectrums, from the passionate red to the sanguine blue, hopeful green, and melancholic purple, which is why he left Vincent Van Gogh at Arles alone in neverending loneliness. He craved recognition in a grand salon, yet he longed for independence on an island beneath an ancient sun. So, naturally, I wanted to know about Gauguin from his own writings, not from another in the form of a biography. Hence the Writings of a Savage by Paul Gauguin.
The book is an interesting compendium of mostly letters to his select few friends and occasionally his wife and of essays and articles about arts and religion, demonstrating Gauguin's erudition and introspection. While reading the book, I could not help but think that if he had been a professional journalist or an art critic, his artistic talent would have basked in the glorious sun at dawn rather than a struggling painter always on the verge of starvation. But most of all, what I wanted to know was if Gauguin had cut Gogh's ear as I heard the rumor. Before reading this book, I had a priori thought Gauguin was a man of temper because his image was incompatible with the Dutch painter's delicate, sophisticated, and sensitive appearance and temperament. But while my prejudice was not entirely faulty, Gauguin proved not guilty as he talked about it before his impending death away from civilization. Besides, my reading of Gauguin’s writings convinced me that he was not culpable for the injury, even if some like to contrive the circumstantial evidence to make the French pariah artist imbued with jealousy and violence against the suffering Dutch genius. Gauguin might have been passionate, but the passion is directed toward his artistic creation of the worlds he views in his mind and the snobbishness of critics and bureaucrats curating the works of painters who know nothing about the arts.
Imagination, innovation, and independence are the jewels of Gauguin's prime colors that create his artistic Elysium. Gauguin was liberal in social stance, especially against clericalism, but royal in the artistic philosophy that how to draw doesn't mean an exact copy of the figure because that's not the purpose and creation of art for art's sake. As the title indicates Gauguin was a noble savage who, as a disciple of Rousseau, returned to a primordial state of humanity to escape from the over-intellectualized inertia of civilization that depreciated and ignored his works of art. I still can't say the book converted me to the cult of his paintings, which differ from Renoir, Monet, and Pissaro. But the book was a medium of looking through the labyrinth Gauguin has built leading to his secret garden, wondrously vibrant and dazzlingly radiant.
The book is an interesting compendium of mostly letters to his select few friends and occasionally his wife and of essays and articles about arts and religion, demonstrating Gauguin's erudition and introspection. While reading the book, I could not help but think that if he had been a professional journalist or an art critic, his artistic talent would have basked in the glorious sun at dawn rather than a struggling painter always on the verge of starvation. But most of all, what I wanted to know was if Gauguin had cut Gogh's ear as I heard the rumor. Before reading this book, I had a priori thought Gauguin was a man of temper because his image was incompatible with the Dutch painter's delicate, sophisticated, and sensitive appearance and temperament. But while my prejudice was not entirely faulty, Gauguin proved not guilty as he talked about it before his impending death away from civilization. Besides, my reading of Gauguin’s writings convinced me that he was not culpable for the injury, even if some like to contrive the circumstantial evidence to make the French pariah artist imbued with jealousy and violence against the suffering Dutch genius. Gauguin might have been passionate, but the passion is directed toward his artistic creation of the worlds he views in his mind and the snobbishness of critics and bureaucrats curating the works of painters who know nothing about the arts.
Imagination, innovation, and independence are the jewels of Gauguin's prime colors that create his artistic Elysium. Gauguin was liberal in social stance, especially against clericalism, but royal in the artistic philosophy that how to draw doesn't mean an exact copy of the figure because that's not the purpose and creation of art for art's sake. As the title indicates Gauguin was a noble savage who, as a disciple of Rousseau, returned to a primordial state of humanity to escape from the over-intellectualized inertia of civilization that depreciated and ignored his works of art. I still can't say the book converted me to the cult of his paintings, which differ from Renoir, Monet, and Pissaro. But the book was a medium of looking through the labyrinth Gauguin has built leading to his secret garden, wondrously vibrant and dazzlingly radiant.
April 28, 2024
This quote partially sums-up Gauguin and his ideas: "Artists have lost all their savagery, all their instincts, one might say their imagination, and so they have wandered down every kind of path in order to find the productive elements they hadn't the strength to create; as a result, they act only as undisciplined crowds and feel frightened, lost as it were, when they are alone. That is why solitude is not to be recommended to everyone, for you have to be strong in order to bear it and act alone. Everything I learned from other people merely stood in my way. Thus I can say: no one taught me anything. On the other hand, it is true that I know so little! But I prefer that little, which is of my own creation. And who knows whether that little, when put to use by others, will not become something big?. . ."
I appreciate the lucidity of this artist's writings. Gauguin was arrogant, but what gifts we get from arrogant people, who aren't afraid to say what the rest of us are so frightened of revealing.
I appreciate the lucidity of this artist's writings. Gauguin was arrogant, but what gifts we get from arrogant people, who aren't afraid to say what the rest of us are so frightened of revealing.
April 9, 2025
Después de estas cartas, admiro a Gauguin, por su forma de sobrevivir en el mundo que se estaba empezando a formar. Se evade, busca su propio mundo lejos de lo conocido, destruye las barreras que el mismo se impuso, pero dejó atrás todo al igual que nada
October 30, 2020
a lot of wakwak in here!!!
gotohell
gotohell
January 2, 2022
Some of the excerpts cut out portions that I would like to have but otherwise it's fantastic!
July 22, 2022
Un genio
March 3, 2023
Although difficult to read in parts, cause boy did Gauguin love the sound of his own voice, I found this book hilarious, insightful and thought provoking!
October 10, 2023
Basicamente ele confessa vários crimes, dentre eles ped0, est9pr0 e por aí vai….
January 13, 2011
We follow Paul Gauguin on his discovery of life and beauty, and above all art. The book is both an essay on art itself, a tale of legends and myths, and a biography of the painter. I like his tough mind, really rude and bold. Gauguin is such a paradox for me because he succeeds in combining the intelligence and cleverness of modern civilization (like the spirit of Paris in the 19th century) and the beauty and strength of civilizations like Polynesian culture and all their incredibles stories. Gauguin is at the beginning a stranger who talks about a beautiful land he is learning to love and little by little, he becomes a real native who talks about his own land, the earth he has become a part of.
Beautiful book with a particular love for the chapter "Noa Noa" (that means perfumed or embaumee) and the letter to her daughter that she never read because she died young.
Beautiful book with a particular love for the chapter "Noa Noa" (that means perfumed or embaumee) and the letter to her daughter that she never read because she died young.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews