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Gauguin
Paperback
Published January 4, 2001
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About the author
Ingo F. Walther
124 books55 followersIngo F. Walther was born in Berlin in 1940 and studied medieval studies, literature, and art history in Frankfurt am Main and Munich. He has published numerous books on the art of the Middle Ages and of the 19th and 20th centuries.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 23, 2021
I am a sucker for Gaugin's Tahitian women. Most of us have a handful of artists (or more) who excite us. Probably not their entire oeuvre, but a special phase of their work that just grabs our imaginations. I love Ansel Adams' photographs of the Sierra Nevada. Georgia O' Keeffe's flowers. Paul Cezanne's still lifes. Andy Warhol's celebrity and wildlife series. Mark Rothko's color field paintings. Andrew Wyeth's northeastern landscapes. Winslow Homer's Adirondack and Key West works. When I think of Gaugin, I think of portraits of dark-skinned women wearing and surrounded by bright tropical colors, composed in a flat geometric arrangement. As I have kept coming back to these paintings, I have actually developed an interest in visiting Tahiti. I know that Tahiti is not the same place now that it was 120 years ago for Gaugin. But I still dream of going there.
A few months ago, I put out a feeler on Goodreads for a book that focuses on Gaugin's work from Tahiti, and got some good recommendations from other readers. This book is not one of those. This is an introduction to Gaugin's art - all of it. I found it at a Half Price Bookstore, as an appetizer until I get my hands on one of the more detailed studies of his Tahiti works. It was written in 1997 by Ingo Walther, a prolific art historian from Germany. Despite the book cover that you see over the review, the full title is Paul Gaugin, 1848 - 1903: The Primitive Sophisticate.
Although I have probably close to a hundred art books, I don't know a lot about qualities of reproductions. The book is "printed on 100% chlorine-free bleached paper in accordance with the TCF standard". That may inform other readers. Regardless, I found the reproductions to be vibrant and clear and in parallel with other Gaugin reproductions that I've seen.
Gaugin actually spent his childhood with his family and grandfather in Peru. When he came of age, he became a sailor for a while, and then went into a more traditional business, which he detested. Once he had saved a good sum, he devoted himself to painting. He married and had five children. As one can imagine, lean years followed, and his wife left with the children to her homeland of Denmark.
He painted in the prevailing impressionist style for a while, but he had a gradual "awakening" that truth in life and in art revolved around removing oneself somehow from the artificial encumbrances of the modern world, and returning to a more primitive state of living and of the mind. His focus turned to the idea of the "noble savage". This was not his own concept, but one probably given credence if not birth by the ills brought about by the Industrial Revolution. It was a yearning to become a "primitive" who lives in harmony with others and with nature. Gaugin decided that living in Tahiti would be a realistic way to pursue this lifestyle, and at the same time kickstart something new in his paintings, which he knew were also tied down by the conventions of the time.
Gaugin lived in Tahiti from 1891 to 1893 and again from 1895 to 1901. I found it interesting that he did not explode with paintings right away after he arrived there. It took him some time to settle into the mood of his new surroundings, but as we know, the inspiration came, and a new Gaugin emerged. When he left the first time in 1893, he wrote that he was "two years older but twenty years younger". Unfortunately, Walther says the benefits of any "new lifestyle" were primarily limited to his art alone - it doesn't appear that he ever gained real happiness, because he had a serious ankle injury, a run of illnesses, and ongoing financial worries that continued to dog him.
Gaugin's masterpieces from Tahiti are stunning. He utilized the technique of Cloissonism, a descendant of Japanese woodcuts, that presents distinct areas of color separated by dark lines. The lines themselves create abstract shapes and intensify the sense of flatness and minimized depth. As I looked at these works, I wondered if Gaugin had been influenced by Rousseau, and the book confirms that. And although I didn't find direct comments on Gaugin being an influence on Matisse, Wikipedia does say that Matisse owned one of Gaugin's paintings. I'd like to learn more about Matisse. It is frustrating to discuss an art book without being able to post a painting within the review, and talk about its impact on me, but there you have it, I'm not that savvy.
A few months ago, I put out a feeler on Goodreads for a book that focuses on Gaugin's work from Tahiti, and got some good recommendations from other readers. This book is not one of those. This is an introduction to Gaugin's art - all of it. I found it at a Half Price Bookstore, as an appetizer until I get my hands on one of the more detailed studies of his Tahiti works. It was written in 1997 by Ingo Walther, a prolific art historian from Germany. Despite the book cover that you see over the review, the full title is Paul Gaugin, 1848 - 1903: The Primitive Sophisticate.
Although I have probably close to a hundred art books, I don't know a lot about qualities of reproductions. The book is "printed on 100% chlorine-free bleached paper in accordance with the TCF standard". That may inform other readers. Regardless, I found the reproductions to be vibrant and clear and in parallel with other Gaugin reproductions that I've seen.
Gaugin actually spent his childhood with his family and grandfather in Peru. When he came of age, he became a sailor for a while, and then went into a more traditional business, which he detested. Once he had saved a good sum, he devoted himself to painting. He married and had five children. As one can imagine, lean years followed, and his wife left with the children to her homeland of Denmark.
He painted in the prevailing impressionist style for a while, but he had a gradual "awakening" that truth in life and in art revolved around removing oneself somehow from the artificial encumbrances of the modern world, and returning to a more primitive state of living and of the mind. His focus turned to the idea of the "noble savage". This was not his own concept, but one probably given credence if not birth by the ills brought about by the Industrial Revolution. It was a yearning to become a "primitive" who lives in harmony with others and with nature. Gaugin decided that living in Tahiti would be a realistic way to pursue this lifestyle, and at the same time kickstart something new in his paintings, which he knew were also tied down by the conventions of the time.
Gaugin lived in Tahiti from 1891 to 1893 and again from 1895 to 1901. I found it interesting that he did not explode with paintings right away after he arrived there. It took him some time to settle into the mood of his new surroundings, but as we know, the inspiration came, and a new Gaugin emerged. When he left the first time in 1893, he wrote that he was "two years older but twenty years younger". Unfortunately, Walther says the benefits of any "new lifestyle" were primarily limited to his art alone - it doesn't appear that he ever gained real happiness, because he had a serious ankle injury, a run of illnesses, and ongoing financial worries that continued to dog him.
Gaugin's masterpieces from Tahiti are stunning. He utilized the technique of Cloissonism, a descendant of Japanese woodcuts, that presents distinct areas of color separated by dark lines. The lines themselves create abstract shapes and intensify the sense of flatness and minimized depth. As I looked at these works, I wondered if Gaugin had been influenced by Rousseau, and the book confirms that. And although I didn't find direct comments on Gaugin being an influence on Matisse, Wikipedia does say that Matisse owned one of Gaugin's paintings. I'd like to learn more about Matisse. It is frustrating to discuss an art book without being able to post a painting within the review, and talk about its impact on me, but there you have it, I'm not that savvy.
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April 13, 2023This book provides the reader with a fairly accounting of Gauguin’s life and the evolution of his painting style from early days in Paris to his travels, and eventual moving, to Tahiti. Gauguin was ever in search of a simple life or paradise which he most closely found in Tahiti. However, even there he realized that he could never completely escape the ingrained habits and monetary demands of what he had left behind.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews