Gauguin Tahiti

by George T.M. Shackelford (Contributor)

The life of Paul Gauguin is one of the richest and most mythic in the history of Western art. A banker and “Sunday painter,” he left behind family and homeland and sailed to the South Seas, seeking a life “in ecstasy, in peace, and for art.” Gauguin Tahiti , the first major retrospective of the artist's work in fifteen years, offers an in-depth study of the fabled Polynesian years that have so defined our image of the painter. Alongside essays by leading American and French critics on every aspect of Gauguin's art, from the legendary canvases to his sculptures, ceramics and innovative graphic works, are discussions of the Polynesian society, culture and religion that helped shape them; an in-depth biographical narrative of the artist's life, with the many epiphanies, frustrations and discoveries that make his time in the South Seas one of the most mythologically potent episodes in the history of Western art; and a chronicle of his changing fortunes in the century since his death. At the center of it all is Gauguin's 1897 masterpiece, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? , the summation and crowning glory of his mature career, presented with unprecedented depth and authority. Over one hundred years later, Gauguin remains one of the most enigmatic and attractive figures of 19th-century art, the very pivot of modernism, and Gauguin Tahiti finally portrays this crucial period of his life in all its color and drama.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

372 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Brian Fagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably have over 50 books on favorite genres and individuals in the fields of painting and photography. In terms of treatises on single artists, I believe Gaugin Tahiti may be the most comprehensive, especially considering that we are looking at one phase of an artist's career. (It was put out in 2004 in conjunction with exhibitions in Boston and Paris.) The book however, does suffer from defects in its composition. The editor decided to enlist multiple historians to cover different subphases of Gaugin's two stays in Tahiti and his stay in the Marquesas Islands. That alone makes sense. However, when the work was assigned, the topics overlapped significantly. This made the book read awkwardly. The reader takes two steps forward and then one step back, as a new chapter often goes back to the middle of the previous chapter in terms of timeline and topic. Additionally, the illustrations are not referenced in a cohesive way: some are tagged with a figure number, some with a catalog number and some with neither. Readers familiar with art books will also be frustrated that the sizes of works are not given. But beyond these issues, anyone who is fascinated by the art of Paul Gaugin is in for a treat. The scholarship is very impressive and comprehensive, and the book discusses about 300 works from Gaugin's ten years in Tahiti.

I don't know or remember much about Gaugin's pre-Tahiti works. But what I think of when I envision a typical Gaugin painting from Tahiti is a brightly-colored canvas composed of relatively few blocks of bold colors, with the central figure being a Polynesian woman, often sitting. While his paintings have some depth, the overall effect is usually that of a flat surface of colors that minimizes use of perspective and vanishing point. He was one of many European artists around this period that were strongly influenced by Japanese and cloisonné-style prints which featured outlined figures in a composition that was divided into blocks of color. Shackelford writes that Gaugin's Tahiti paintings were characterized by "stylized contours, simplified color, and forceful distortion of perspective". This style is referred to as Synthetism, of which Gaugin was a leading figure. Many art historians categorize Gaugin's paintings as "decorative", in that their primary effect is planar, and reflect his equal interest in composition and representation. I would imagine that this characteristic ties him both back to Impressionism and forward to Cubism and Abstract Expressionism. Overall, Gaugin's work was also part of the Symbolist movement. He frequently combined obvious references to Christianity and to Polynesian spiritual beliefs in the same work, because he felt that all religions have validity. Viewers of Gaugin's art of this time are often struck by its apparent mysticism.

I admire and enjoy many features of Gaugin's paintings. However, there was one tendency he had that is not appealing to me. At times it seems as if he had a compulsion to add figures or animals into large solid spaces in his works. My favorites are those in which he avoided that tendency. I can't say that the busier compositions weren't fully worked out prior to production, but it feels as though a good thing was tampered with unsuccessfully.

Before reading this book I wasn't aware that Gaugin became a serious woodcarver in Tahiti. He carved wood blocks that he used for printmaking. His carvings of Polynesian idols are absolutely amazing, and these he also later incorporated into many of his paintings. At that time he was considered "the greatest wood engraver (to emerge in) 100 years".

Gaugin famously turned his back on society and went to Tahiti for the stated purpose of getting in touch with the primitive in his soul, largely so that his art could likewise reflect untainted and "Edenic" (author's word) life. He said he had Incan blood and that it was reflected in everything he did. "I try to confront rotten civilization with something more natural, based on savagery." He used the words savage and primitive to describe both his art and himself. However, he was savvy enough to arrange initial reimbursement for his trip by arranging with the French Ministry of Fine Arts a stipend for the purpose of studying and painting the customs and landscapes of Tahiti. Unfortunately, what Gaugin found in the Tahiti of 1891 to 1903 was a culture that was already deeply changed by French and other European presences. "It was the Tahiti of former times that I loved. That of the present filled me with horror." Considering that reaction, and the fact that he became progressively ill with advanced syphilis, it should be considered surprising and extremely impressive that he accomplished the output of quantity and quality that he produced after his initial shock. He soon moved away from the area of Papeete, the capital city, to a remote location.

However, it is clear that his departure from Paris was also a forceful rejection of society. While most of us would agree that that decision could at times be grounded in rational thought, I think that most who read extensively about Gaugin, and learn the content of his letters to his art contacts back in Paris, and read excerpts of his own writings will come away with the conclusion that he was a victim of mental illness. He did have major problems in Paris that could be seen as relatively rational reasons for anger and frustration. These included his "contemporaries' incomprehension, the hostility of critics and the financial disaster of his artistic output". But the other side of the coin includes that with this decision he left his family behind forever. Shackelford details Gaugin's fruitless efforts to publish a book memorializing his first stay in Tahiti. The entire project, from his bizarre ideas about the structure of the book to his incredibly disorganized efforts to find a publisher, revealed a mind that was naive and unrealistic. His own writings mention his "unruly mind". His letters to his art contacts bring out many psychological issues - mistrust, a passive/aggressive personality, a childlike and brittle ego, terrible indecisiveness, dizzying changes of mind and reversals of plans. One of Shackelford's researchers here, Isabelle Cahn, wrote that Gaugin was "pegged an antisocial misfit". I think he was indeed exactly that.

[Felice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Interesting. The photos of the artwork is splendid, especially the four page centerfold of "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" This book explains his life and his viewpoint of his radical (at the time) approach to art and life. It illuminates his thought processes and feelings about the world around him by explaining his writings, some of which were published when he was alive and others after his death. I truly enjoyed this book.

[Andy Montero · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an exhaustive look at Paul Gaugin's life and death through his art. As an avid fan of Tiki and Polynesian culture, I was drawn to this man's story as much (if not more than) as to his art. Gaugin's life spent escaping the norms of the French art world and society in search of a more primitive way of life at the turn of the 20th Century was a precursor to the Tiki escapism in America in the Mid-Century period. It's sad that like most artists, Gaugin's work wasn't appreciated until well after his death. Can't the same be said of American Tiki culture with the current revival? Both stories have a Polynesian escape as the backdrop.