On 14th November I went to the Gauguin exhibition at Tate Modern which I didn't expect to have any bearing on printmaking although he did do some primitive woodcuts. I was surprised that I found myself thinking "that would make a nice three coulour lino print".
The exhibition was laid out in rooms, each one relating to a different area his life or work, which I found very helpful in forming a picture of 'Gauguin'. The rooms were as follows:
Identity and Self Mythology - Guaguin used his self portraits to create the identity he wanted for himself. He was afterall, a bourgois banker and family man who turned himself into a bohemian martyr. I can't help wondering when he portrays himself wearing a fez who he is trying to convince that he's a bohemian intellectual. At the time he was a stockbroker painting for a hobby, I think he was trying to convince himself. I can relate to this as I have been a bank manager myself whilst painting as a hobby but I always thought of myself as more of an artist than a bank manager.
Making the familiar Strange - Some of Gauguin's still lifes are amongst his most decorative and surreal, for example the painting of one of his children sleeping with a bird on the wallpaper in the background. The bird looks so real that it could be the subject of the child's dream. Many of the domestic scenes depict normal family life which must have been fraught because he wanted to be a painter but had a family to support. This was a source of tension between him and his wife.
Life and Times 1848 to 1891 - This room included a selection of books and letters and revealed something of his background which was very much rooted in Paris. Even when he was on Tahiti he kept in touch with what was going on in Paris. He is said to have been disappointed that the Tahitian's were so westernised but it didn't stop him using their postal system to stay in touch with developments back home and of course to keep in touch with his dealer.
Guaguin's Drawings - Some of these drawings are 'technically' very good, the sort of drawings most people would think of as displaying exceptional skill. The more interesting ones are those where Gauguin is experimenting and trying to evolve a new raw essentialised form of drawing free from analytical detail.
Landscape and Rural Narrative - Gauguin went to Brittany many times and painted the locals with affection. He found the area wild and primitive. The people were the most important thing to Gauguin in capturing the essence of a landscape and portraying the way they interact with their landscape seems to be part of that. Folk traditions and locally produced items also seem to have inspired him greatly. His first trips to completely alien landscapes were to Panama and then to Martinique in 1887. Martinique in particular seems to have changed his painting from the sombre early paintings of Brittany to a vibrant palette. The paintings also have a flattened perspective which adds to their decorativeness but all this was completely counter to the culture of European art at the time. It made me think of the work by Matisse sometime later with it's leaning towards decoration rather than traditional perspective. Although Gauguin had romantecised preconceptions that led him to these foreign countries which often seem to have received a rude awakening when he got there (he left Panama with dysentry and malaria and found the Tahitians too westernised) he tries to convey in a subjective way how he feels about landscapes, cultures and peoples that are so very different to Paris. You get the message that his senses are screaming "wow!" at the lush vegetation and tropical sunlight but the finished paintings are also a work of his intellect, there is an intellectual process that say's "how can I show these dull Parisians what a tropical island paradise is like?" In the end, Gauguin for me, remains a romantic.
Rooms 6 and 7 - Sacred Themes and The Eternal Feminine - For someone who wasn't keen on the Christian Church Gauguin seems to have spent quite a lot of time exploring pre Christian and pagan themes. There were some primitive wood cuts which worked well for the subjects they portrayed ie. pagan deities. All his carvings and woodcuts could easily have been made by the local inhabitants. I liked the way he worked from a 3D wood carving made by himself back into a 2D painting of the same object. He doesn't draw exclusively on the locals mythology but mixes up Christian and Buddhist beliefs with Tahitian settings to almost create his own mythology.
Room 8 - Life and Times 1889 to 1903 - Not only did Gauguin become what he set out to become ie. a bohemian intellectual artist and traveller, but he went further and actually immersed himself in the culture and folklore of his landscapes in an almost scientific way. He wasn't just flirting with exoticism. However more superficially, he managed to construct a myth about himself that grew and continued growing after his death.
Rooms 9 and 10 - Gauguin's Titles, Teller of Tales - It's quite obvious that words and narrative were an integral part of his work and he even produced wood cut books. Just as he told a tale about himself in the role he wanted to play and then became that role so he wanted his paintings to tell tales or at least imply a narrative often by using enigmatic titles such as, "Are you jealous?", is this addressed to the viewer or is it a question posed by the people in the painting? Is it a drama being played out by the characters or is he saying to the viewer, "I bet you wish you could give up your bourgeois Parisian lifestyle for this tropical heaven". When I looked at some of his elongated landscapes which almost read like story books I am reminded of Stanley Spencer's idealised narrative painting 'The Resurrection, Cookham'
Room 11 - Earthly Paradise - The myth of Gauguin's final years is a carefree existence in a tropical Eden, a myth which he created himself, but the reality was ill health due to an ankle injury and the onset of syphilis. This and his uncertain financial situation don't seem to have dislodged the myth from his imagination one bit, if anything the nearer he gets to death the more fervently he imagines paradise, as if embracing it.
Final thoughtt - Stanley Spencer's earlier devotional paintings such as Zacharias and Elizabeth and Gauguin's 1889 painting 'Christ in the Garden of Olives' are stylistically and thematically very similar. Their portrayals of an earthly paradise and their use of narrative are very much akin to one another.
This exhibition made me realise how complexed a character Gauguin was but also how intriguing, his many facetted work still holding our interest today.
