Delphi Complete Works of Paul Gauguin Read online

  Paul Gauguin

  (1848-1903)

  Contents

  The Highlights

  STUDY OF A NUDE

  INTERIOR OF THE ARTIST’S HOME

  SELF PORTRAIT AT THE EASEL

  TROPICAL VEGETATION, MARTINIQUE

  THE VISION AFTER THE SERMON

  VAN GOGH PAINTING SUNFLOWERS

  OLD WOMEN AT ARLES

  BONJOUR MONSIEUR GAUGUIN

  THE YELLOW CHRIST

  THE LOSS OF VIRGINITY

  SUZANNE BAMBRIDGE

  WOMAN WITH A FLOWER

  HAIL MARY

  WHEN WILL YOU MARRY?

  SPIRIT OF THE DEAD WATCHING

  WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

  ANNAH, THE JAVANESE WOMAN

  NEVERMORE

  WHERE DO WE COME FROM? WHAT ARE WE? WHERE ARE WE GOING?

  The Paintings

  THE COMPLETE PAINTINGS

  ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PAINTINGS

  Other Artworks

  LIST OF DRAWINGS AND SCULPTURES

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  © Delphi Classics 2016

  Version 1

  Masters of Art Series

  Paul Gauguin

  By Delphi Classics, 2016

  COPYRIGHT

  Masters of Art - Paul Gauguin

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Delphi Classics.

  © Delphi Classics, 2016.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

  ISBN: 978 1 78656 502 0

  Delphi Classics

  is an imprint of

  Delphi Publishing Ltd

  Hastings, East Sussex

  United Kingdom

  Contact: [email protected]

  www.delphiclassics.com

  Explore Modern Art with Delphi Classics

  For the first time in digital publishing history, Delphi Classics is proud to present the complete works of these artists in eReading collections.

  Browse our Modernists

  The Highlights

  ‘Barricade on the rue Soufflot’ by Horace Vernet, 1848 — Paul Gauguin was born in Paris on June 7, 1848. His birth coincided with revolutionary upheavals throughout Europe that year.

  Gauguin was born at 56 rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, 9th arrondissement

  Aline Marie Chazal Tristán, the artist’s mother, who was the daughter of the Peruvian Andre Chazal, an engraver, and Flora Tristan, an author and activist in early socialist movements.

  Gauguin, c. 1891

  THE HIGHLIGHTS

  In this section, a sample of Gauguin’s most celebrated works is provided, with concise introductions, special ‘detail’ reproductions and additional biographical images.

  STUDY OF A NUDE

  Gauguin was born in Paris to Clovis Gauguin and Alina Maria Chazal on 7 June, 1848. His father, a thirty-four-year-old liberal journalist came from a family of petit-bourgeoisie entrepreneurs residing in Orléans and he was compelled to flee France when his newspaper was suppressed by French authorities. Gauguin’s mother, the 22-year-old Aline Marie Chazal, was the daughter of Andre Chazal, an engraver, and Flora Tristan, an author and activist in early socialist movements. In 1850, they departed for Peru with their young children in hopes of continuing Clovis’ journalist career under the auspices of his wife’s South American relations. However, Andre died of a heart attack en route, and Alina arrived in Peru a widow with the eighteen-month-old Paul and his two-and-a-year-old sister, Marie. Gauguin’s mother was welcomed by her paternal granduncle, whose son-in-law would shortly assume the presidency of Peru. To the age of six, Paul enjoyed a privileged upbringing, attended by nursemaids and servants.

  Gauguin’s idyllic childhood in this “tropical paradise” ended abruptly when his family mentors fell from political power during Peruvian civil conflicts in 1854. His uncle would ultimately be remembered as one of the country’s most corrupt presidents and it was not long till his underhand dealings were revealed. Aline returned to France with her children, leaving Paul with his paternal grandfather, Guillaume Gauguin, in Orleans. Deprived by the Peruvian Tristan Moscoso clan of a generous annuity arranged by her granduncle, Alina settled in Paris to work as a dressmaker.

  At the age of fourteen, Gauguin entered the Loriol Institute in Paris, a naval preparatory school, before returning to Orléans to take his final year at the Lycée Jeanne D’Arc. Next Gauguin signed on as a pilot’s assistant in the merchant marine. Three years later, he joined the French navy in which he served for two years. Then followed a riotous period of adventures on the seas, which the artist recorded in his diaries, chronicling his various sexual encounters at the various ports he visited across the world. His mother died on 7 July 1867, though he did not learn of it for several months until a letter from his sister Marie caught up with him in India.

  In 1871, Gauguin returned to Paris where he secured a position as a stockbroker, through the timely assistance of Gustave Arosa, a close family friend, working at the Paris Bourse, the capital’s stock exchange, when Gauguin was aged twenty-three. He became a successful Parisian businessman and remained one for the next eleven years, eventually earning a large salary. However, this good fortune was not to last.

  Gauguin met and fell in love with a Danish woman, Mette-Sophie Gad (1850–1920) in 1873. They were soon married, Mette believing she was marrying a promising young stock broker, evidently on the rise. However, Gauguin had a secret passion, which until now she knew very little about. Around the same time as he had become a stockbroker, Gauguin began painting in his free time. His Parisian life centred mainly on the 9th arrondissement of Paris, close to the cafés frequented by the Impressionists. Gauguin also frequently visited galleries and purchased work by emerging artists. He formed a friendship with Camille Pissarro and visited him on Sundays to paint in his garden, where he was introduced to various other artists.

  In 1877 Gauguin moved downmarket and across the Seine to the poorer, newer, urban sprawls of Vaugirard. Here, on the third floor at 8 rue Carcel, he had the first home in which he established a studio. From 1881 to 1882 Gauguin exhibited paintings in Impressionist exhibitions, while a sculpture, of his son Émile had been the only sculpture in the 4th Impressionist Exhibition of 1879. His paintings received dismissive reviews.

  Study of a Nude (1880), completed in Paris, currently resides in the collection of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. It depicts a nude young woman arranging a garment in a bedroom. The figure sits on an unmade bed against a mauve wall, decorated with a mandolin and tapestry. The body of the model is a three-quarter perspective with the head in profile. While the woman’s face suggests she is attractive, her body is large, disproportionately pear-shaped and intentionally ugly. The canvas demonstrates the influence of the Impressionists on Gauguin. This striking life-size study was major feature of the 1881 Impressionist show. The heavy flesh of the big-boned pregnant woman, juxtaposed with her everyday task, leant the painting a realistic quality often found in the canvases of Degas and Manet. The fine brushwork and nuanced colouring of light, subtly shown in the blue and green shadows on the woman’s skin, recall the work of Renoir and the tutelage of Gauguin’s great friend Pissarro.

  Despite the impact the painting had at the exhibition, it went without a buyer. Mette refused to hang the painting in their home, revealing, perhaps, her early antipathy for her husband’s ‘hobby’. However, when Gauguin left his family in Copenhagen, the picture was held by her until it was sol
d in 1892 to the Danish artist, Theodor Philipsen.

  Detail

  Detail

  Detail

  Detail

  Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter, born on the island of St. Thomas. Pissarro was Gauguin’s first mentor and strongly influenced his early paintings.

  ‘Young Peasant Having Her Coffee’ by Camille Pissarro, 1881

  INTERIOR OF THE ARTIST’S HOME

  When Gauguin produced this unusual interior scene in 1881 he was still enjoying the fruits of a lucrative career as a stockbroker. We can detect many signs of an affluent lifestyle enjoyed by the family, particularly symbolised by the large elaborate fan propped beside the woman in the scene. She is most likely the artist’s wife, Mette, who is seated by a piano, accompanied by her four children. The canvas evokes a world of solid bourgeois respectability, reflected in the cosy interior and the domestic comforts abounding the foreground in such features as the small work basket on the table.

  Interior of the Artist’s Home was exhibited in the seventh Impressionist exhibition – which Gauguin also helped to organise — of 1882, where he displayed thirteen works in total. The painting is different from typical Impressionist works of this period, due to its dark and sombre tone, in contrast to the light and more vibrant coloured canvases of the other Impressionists. Gauguin’s image is also produced on a much larger scale, quite different from the smaller and more intimate canvases of his fellow artists, who preferred working en plein air. The conventional treatment of family life — at odds with some of the artist’s later canvases — could well be the reason why Mette opted to keep the painting in her personal collection until 1917.

  Detail

  Detail

  Detail

  Detail

  Mette with the Gauguin children

  SELF PORTRAIT AT THE EASEL

  Disaster struck the Gauguin family in 1882. The Paris stock market crashed and the art market contracted. Paul Durand-Ruel, the Impressionists’ primary art dealer, was especially affected by the crash and for a period of time stopped buying pictures from Gauguin. At once his earnings dwindled and over the next two years he slowly formulated plans to become a full-time artist. The following two summers, he painted with Pissarro and occasionally Paul Cézanne. In October 1883, he wrote to Pissarro, explaining his decision to make his living from painting at all costs and asking for his help, which Pissarro at first readily provided. The following January, Gauguin moved with his family to Rouen, where they could live more cheaply. However, the venture would prove to be one of the many brash money-making plans that Gauguin would act upon, only to later deeply regret. By the end of the year Mette returned to Copenhagen, Gauguin following shortly after in November 1884, bringing with him his art collection, which subsequently remained in Copenhagen.

  Life in Denmark proved equally difficult and their marriage grew strained. Mette secured a respectable position as a governess teaching French, due to her high family connections. In time, Gauguin became something of a disappointment to her family, who saw him as a scapegrace bohemian, unable to provide for his family. At Mette’s insistence — supported by her family — Gauguin returned to Paris the following year. In effect, he was exiled by his wife.

  The following plate is the artist’s first complete self portrait, produced during his difficult time in Copenhagen. His letters back to friends in Paris chronicle the many troubles he faced while living with Mette’s family and he missed the cultural life of Paris. He developed a severe dislike for the Danes, his wife’s family in particular, while the harsh climate meant that he could do little work in the open air. Increasingly, he was forced to work indoors, without a model, and his subject matter betrays the bitterness and anxiety he felt during these difficult times. He presents himself as a solitary artist with a pale, almost lifeless face, looking off to the left, as though searching for better times. It is a romantic characterisation: the penniless artist as a solitary figure, labouring in a garret, working as an artistic martyr.

  Detail

  Detail

  Detail

  Detail

  TROPICAL VEGETATION, MARTINIQUE

  Gauguin spent the summer of 1886 in the artist’s colony of Pont-Aven in Brittany, where he found himself an unexpected success with the young art students, who flocked there for the summer. He was remembered during that period as much for his outlandish appearance as for his art. Amongst these new associates he formed a friendship with Charles Laval, who accompanied Gauguin the following year to Panama and Martinique. Under the influence of folk art and Japanese prints, Gauguin’s work evolved towards Cloisonnism, a style named by the critic Édouard Dujardin in response to Émile Bernard’s method of painting with flat areas of colour and bold outlines, which reminded Dujardin of the Medieval cloisonné enamelling technique. Gauguin was appreciative of Bernard’s art and daring style, which suited the former stockbroker in his quest to express the essence of objects in his art.

  In 1887 Gauguin hit upon what would be his most disastrous venture of all. He and Laval set off for Panama, where a friend had promised he could secure for them a rewarding post at a bank. At the time, there was a frenzy of excitement for the country, as work was underway on the Panama Canal; Gauguin was determined to be a part of this success. However, when they arrived there was in fact no such job and before long Gauguin and Laval were slaving away as menial labourers, trying to earn as much money as they could to escape the miserable working conditions they found themselves subjected to. They became ill quickly due to squalid living conditions and they were advised to leave Panama. As soon as they had enough money, they set sail for Saint Pierre in Martinique in the Caribbean. It must have seemed a dreamlike paradise after the horrors endured in Panama.

  Gauguin spent approximately six months on the island of Martinique in June to November 1887. His thoughts and experiences during this time are recorded in his letters to his wife Mette and his artist friend Emile Schuffenecker. While living in a hut, he produced between ten to twenty canvases. His letters express an excitement about the exotic location and natives represented in his paintings. Gauguin asserted that four of his paintings on the island were better than the rest. The paintings are bright and chromatically diverse, with loose brushstrokes, often featuring outdoor figural scenes. Even though his time on the island was short, it was certainly influential, hinting at many of the major themes and subjects that would dominate the later famous Tahiti artworks.

  The following landscape reveals a view of the bay of Saint-Pierre, with the volcano Mount Pelée in the background. The image conveys a tropical paradise unsullied by any human signs. The influence of Cézanne’s work can be detected in the regular patterning of the brushstrokes, which help to flatten the picture surface. The absence of aerial perspective and the saturated jewel-like colours add to the exotic and disorientating impression of the piece.

  Detail

  Detail

  Detail

  Detail

  ‘Mont Sainte-Victoire’ by Paul Cézanne, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1887

  Charles Laval, Self Portrait, 1888, Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam

  THE VISION AFTER THE SERMON

  After Gauguin’s sojourn in the Caribbean, he returned for a time to the artists’ retreat at Pont-Aven, Brittany. He had started off landscape painting in the summer en plein air, but following his work on The Vision after the Sermon he focused increasingly on interpreting religious subject matter in a highly personal way. The 1888 painting prominently features the Breton peasants that the artist found as exotic, primitive types. Gauguin’s usual bright colours and simplified shapes are portrayed as flat silhouettes, as objects are taken out of their normal contexts. The unusual canvas depicts a scene from the Bible in which Jacob wrestles an angel, placed in the top right of the image, which is represented as a vision that the Breton women experience after a sermon in church.

  The use of colour, shape and line is noted for its bo
ld manner and handling of paint. Deriving inspiration from Japanese woodblock prints from Hiroshige and Hokusai, which we know belonged to Gauguin, he developed the concept of introducing non-naturalistic landscapes in his canvases. He applies large areas of flat colour – once again indebted to Cézanne — and the red ground departs from conventional representation of earth, field or grass. In portraying the watching figures Gauguin experiments with the distortion of shapes, exaggerating features and preferring strong contour lines rather than gradual shifts in tone that most painters practiced. The brown trunk, black garments, white hats and red field are painted with minimal colour shading. Moving away from naturalism towards a more abstracted, even symbolic, manner of painting, he achieves his own individualistic style.

  Gauguin structures the painting by placing a tree trunk diagonally through its centre, creating a visual separation between the Breton women and their vision of an angel wrestling with Jacob. This compositional technique is used to frame the main subjects of the painting. The curve of the trunk follows the line of the head of the centre-most figure. The branches and leaves shoot out directly toward the upper right corner of the painting to form a second frame around the angel and Jacob. The overall perspective is purposely skewed, but effectively accomplished by his clustering of people in diminished sizes along the left edge.