A Frenchman in Tahiti. Gauguin’s search for pristine originality and unadulterated nature

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) was not cut out for finance. Nor did he last particularly long in the French Navy, or as a tarpaulin salesman in Copenhagen who did not speak Danish. He began painting in his spare time in 1873 and in 1876 took part in the Paris Salon. Three years later, he was exhibiting alongside Pissarro, Degas, and Monet.

A querulous, hard-drinking individual, Gauguin often called himself a savage. His close but fraught friendship with the similarly temperamental Vincent van Gogh climaxed in a violent incident in 1888, when van Gogh purportedly confronted Gauguin with a razor blade, and later cut off his own ear. Shortly afterwards, following the completion of a midcareer masterpiece Vision After the Sermon (1888), Gauguin took himself to Tahiti, with the intention of escaping “everything that is artificial and conventional…”On Tahiti, Gauguin’s unfettered joy in the island’s nature, native people, and figurative images soared, spurring a prolific output of paintings and prints. In works such as Woman with a Flower (Vahine no te Tiare, 1891) and Sacred Spring: Sweet Dreams (Nave Nave Moe, 1894), he developed a distinct, Primitivist style that positively oozed with sunshine and colour. In the tradition of exotic sensuality, his thick, buttery lashings of paint lingered in particular over the curves of Tahitian women.

Gauguin died alone, on Tahiti’s neighboring Marquesas Islands, with many of his personal papers and belongings dispersed in a local auction. It was not until a smart art dealer began curating and showing Gauguin’s work in Paris that the artist’s profound influence began making itself felt, especially to the new breed of French avant-garde artists, such as Picasso and Matisse.

This book offers the essential introduction the artist’s truly colourful life, from the Impressionist salons of 1870s Paris to his final days in the Pacific, productive and passionate to the end.

About the series:

Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features:

- a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
- a concise biography
- approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Published in conjunction with the exhibition Gauguin: Metamorphoses at The Museum of Modern Art, this volume explores the remarkable relationship between Paul Gauguin's rare and extraordinary prints and transfer drawings, and his better-known paintings and sculptures in wood and ceramic.

Created in several discreet bursts of activity from 1889 until his death in 1903, these remarkable works on paper reflect Gauguin's experiments with a range of mediums, from radically primitive woodcuts that extend from the sculptural gouging of his carved wood reliefs, to jewel-like watercolour monotypes and large, mysterious transfer drawings. Richly illustrated with approximately 190 works in a range of mediums, Gauguin: Metamorphoses explores the artist's radically experimental approach to techniques and his pivotal place in the history of art. An introductory essay by Starr Figura considers the significance of Gauguin's innovative printmaking and the relationship between his prints and works in painting and sculpture.

About the Authors:

Elizabeth Childs writes on Gauguin's radical wood sculptures, using them as a touchstone from which to further investigate his peripatetic practice.
An essay by Hal Foster addresses Gauguin's primitivism and its aesthetic and cultural implications.
An essay by Erika Mosier offers a conservator's insights into Gauguin's unusual printmaking techniques.

This dazzling book showcases dozens of Paul Gauguin’s most celebrated works and presents a new consideration of the artist’s relationships.

This vibrant examination of Paul Gauguin’s life and work features more than fifty pieces from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek collection in Copenhagen, including paintings, wood carvings, and ceramics along with Oceanic art and Gauguin’s works on paper from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s permanent collections. Each piece is reproduced in exquisite detail, offering a superb opportunity to enjoy Gauguin’s groundbreaking use of color, line, and form. 

Essays examine Gauguin’s relationships and reveal the struggles, indulgences, awakenings, and betrayals of his personal and professional life. Other essays provide new insights into Gauguin’s travels to the far reaches of the French colonial empire in the Pacific and explore his cultural identity, sexuality, and spirituality. 

Beautifully designed to complement Gauguin’s extraordinary oeuvre, this book offers a refreshing take on an artist whose life and work continue to fascinate to the present day.
 

An exceptional monograph-catalogue revealing the innovative drive in Gauguin’s work

This catalogue offers a unique opportunity to view Gauguin’s entire artistic development from his early impressionist works to his final masterpieces painted on the Marquesas Islands where the artist went in search of an Arcadian kingdom “of ecstasy, peace and art, far from the typical European struggle for money”. 

In reality such a paradise on earth no longer existed, not even on the other side of the globe, however the wealth and complexity of life that he found before him there, inspired the creation of a series of works which are among the most vivid and durable in the history of painting.

Gauguin began his artistic life as an Impressionist in Paris, but yearning for a wider world view he experimented with decorative art and bright colours to create what some have termed Symbolism. He painted briefly with Van Gogh but was strongly drawn by the “otherness” of the South Pacific to which he travelled frequently, and finally settled far away from his origins and early influences to create a unique and intensely personal body of work. This beautiful new book revels in the scenes of Tahiti, the sunlit bodies, the shapes and styles of the South Pacific each of which have secured him a unique place in the history of art.

A Frenchman in Tahiti

After starting a career as a bank broker, Paul Gauguin (born 1848) turned to painting only at age twenty-five. After initial successes within the Impressionist circle, he broke with Vincent van Gogh and subsequently, when private difficulties caused him to become restless, embarked on a peripatetic life, wandering first through Europe and finally, in the search for pristine originality and unadulterated nature, to Tahiti. The paintings created from this time to his death in 1903 brought him posthumous fame. In pictures devoid of any attempt at romantically disguising the life style of the primitive island peoples, Gauguin was able to convey the magical effect that both the landscapes and life of the natives — their body language, charm and beauty — had on him. Wearying of his reputation as a South Sea painter, Gauguin finally determined to return to France, but died of syphilis on the Marquis Islands before his departure.

About the Series:
Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art Series features:

• a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
• a concise biography
• approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions

The author:
Ingo F. Walther (1940-2007) was born in Berlin and studied medieval studies, literature, and art history in Frankfurt am Main and Munich. He published numerous books on the art of the Middle Ages and of the 19th and 20th centuries. Walther's many titles for TASCHEN include Vincent Van Gogh, Picasso, Art of the 20th Century, and Codices Illustres.

A Frenchman in Tahiti. Gauguin’s search for pristine originality and unadulterated nature

After starting a career as a bank broker, Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) turned to painting only at age twenty-five. After initial successes within the Impressionist circle, he broke with Vincent van Gogh and subsequently - when private difficulties caused him to become restless - embarked on a peripatetic life, wandering first through Europe and finally, in the search for pristine originality and unadulterated nature, to Tahiti.

The paintings created from this time to his death in 1903 brought him posthumous fame. In pictures devoid of any attempt at romantically disguising the life style of the primitive island peoples, Gauguin was able to convey the magical effect that both the landscapes and life of the natives - their body language, charm and beauty - had on him. Wearying of his reputation as a South Sea painter, Gauguin finally determined to return to France, but died of syphilis on the Marquis Islands before his departure.

About the Series:

Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Art Series features:

* a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist
* approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions
* a concise biography

In 1889, Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) organized the independent L’Exposition de Peintures du Groupe Impressionniste et Synthésiste at Café Volpini with his followers on the occasion of the Paris World’s Fair. The French artist presented an extraordinary portfolio of prints in this framework for the first time: the so-called Suite Volpini, an ensemble of eleven lithographs printed on radiant yellow paper.

The publication examines the year 1889 as a defining moment in Gauguin’s development in which his autonomous, revolutionary new painting style and the central motifs of his work were unmistakably formed. It reconstructs the Volpini exhibition in the process, demonstrating the radicality of the works produced by Gauguin’s artistic circle. The Suite Volpini – for Gauguin a visual résumé that was intended to advertize his role as the founder of a new style – will be comprehensively described and seen in the context of the artist’s related paintings, woodcuts, ceramics, prints, and drawings.

Книга о французском живописце, скульпторе, мастере керамики и гравере Поле Гогене (1848–1903).

Гоген сравнительно поздно открыл в себе склонность к художеству. В начале своего творческого пути Гоген находился под влиянием импрессионистов, особенно Камиля Писсарро, но в скором времени стал разрабатывать – в противовес импрессионизму – свой синтетический метод. Он был убежден в том, что живопись сродни музыке, а потому цветовой строй картины подчиняется принципам, сходным с законами музыкальной гармонии.

Исследование Гогеном выразительного языка и символического значения линий, поверхностей, цвета способствовало развитию в искусстве стилистических тенденций, предвосхищавших экспрессионизм и абстрактную живопись. 

В 1871 году он стал заниматься живописью и начал коллекционировать произведения Ренуара, Сезанна и Моне. Писсарро познакомил его с живописью импрессионистов. В 1885 году он оставил свою семью – жену и пятерых детей – и всецело посвятил себя живописи. Гоген обитал между двумя мирами. Творя, он зеркально отображал современную цивилизацию, к которой относился с презрением и которой предлагал альтернативу в образе первобытной жизни во всей ее простой, наивной гармонии. Он стремился доказать, что тяга к экзотике южных морей не сводится к одному только желанию убежать от надоевшей обыденности в зачарованные страны, будоражившие воображение его современников. Гоген воплотил в себе новый союз искусства и жизни и явился одним из истинных первопроходцев нового течения в искусстве – модерна, которому суждено было стать ведущим направлением начала ХХ столетия. «Благородный дикарь» признавался Гогеном лучшим из человеческих существ, он радовался бытию и существовал в согласии с природой. А значит, он вел жизнь более счастливую. Вот этого счастья и искал Гоген. Последние работы Гогена, необычайно интенсивные по колориту, относятся к таитянскому периоду. Это картины, проникнутые лиризмом, безмятежностью, гармонией и красотой, и в них никак не обнаруживаются страдания, которыми были отмечены последние годы жизни художника.

Издание состоит из пяти глав, рассказывающих о жизни художника и об истории создания каждой картины, представленной в издании. В конце книги приводится хронология жизни и творчества мастера, проиллюстрированная документальными фотографиями.