Which Captain Morgan Is Best

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) I

Paul Gauguin. The Vision after the Sermon or Jacob Wrestling with the Angel. 1888. 73 X 92. Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland

I just made a very religious painting done wrong but that interested me to do and what I like. I wanted to give the church of Pont-Aven. Of course it does not.

The Breton grouped pray, very intense black suits. The white caps bright yellow. The two caps on the right are like monstrous helmets. An apple tree through the canvas, dark purple foliage and masses drawn by like clouds emerald green with yellow interstices of the sun. The land pure vermilion.

Angel is dressed in blue and overseas Jacob bottle green. The wings of the angel a pure chrome yellow. Angel's hair and feet chrome 2 orange flesh. I think I have achieved in Figures very simple rustic and superstitious. All very severe. For me, in this picture, the landscape and the struggle that exists in the imagination of people in prayer, following the sermon. Therefore there is a contrast between nature and people struggle in its landscape and nature not disproportionate.

Paul Gauguin, letter to Vincent Van Gogh Pont-Aven, September 27, 1888

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"The council does not paint too much after nature. Art is an abstraction, pull from nature while dreaming before and think more about the creation that will result, is the only way to ascend to God by doing as our divine master, create. "

Paul Gauguin, letter to Claude-Emile Schuffenecker

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The artwork will be:

1 ° - IDÉISTE, since his ideal single will be the expression of the Idea;

2 ° - symbolic in that it expresses this idea forms;

3-SYNTHETIC, since write these forms, these signs, as a way of understanding general;

4 ° - SUBJECTIVE, since there will never be regarded as an object, but as a sign of idea perceived by the subject;

5 ° - (This is a consequence) DECORATIVE - for decorative painting itself, as the Egyptians have comprisee most likely the Greeks and the Primitives, is nothing but a manifestation of art at once subjective, synthetic, and symbolic idéiste.

ALBERT G. AURIER. "Symbolism in painting - Paul Gauguin." Mercure de France, March 1891.

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"The undisputed originator of this artistic movement - perhaps one day will do we say This renaissance - it was Paul Gauguin. As a painter, woodcarver, decorator, he said one of the first necessity of simplification of expressive modes, the legitimacy of the search for effects other than the effects of slavish imitation of the materialists, the right of the artist worry about the spiritual and intangible. (...) His pictorial work is imbued with a deep and highly idealistic philosophy, expressed by elementary means that have particularly affected the public and critics. That, one might almost say, of Plato plastically interpreted by a wild genius. There are, indeed, the wild Gauguin the primitive, the Indian who, instinctively, in sculpting ebony dreams strange and wonderful, much more troubling than the mundane rêverasseries licensed masters of our academies.

ALBERT G. AURIER. "Symbols." Journal encyclopedic , 1 April 1892

Paul Gauguin. The Yellow Christ. 1889. 92 X 73. Buffalo, Albright-Knox Museum

I love Britain, I find the savage, primitive, when my clogs resound on the granite floor, I hear the muffled, dull and powerful than I looking painting.

Paul Gauguin. Oviri. Writings of a savage . Texts chosen and presented by Daniel Guerin, Paris, Gallimard, 1974

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I hear that Paul Gauguin is leaving for Tahiti. His intention is to live there several years alone to build his hut, to rework them to nine things that haunt him. The case of a man fleeing civilization, deliberately seeking oblivion and silence, to feel better, to better listen to inner voices choking noise of our passions and our arguments, and seemed curious touching. Paul Gauguin an artist very exceptional, very disturbing, that does not manifest to the public and, consequently, the public knows little. I had many times promised to speak to him. Alas! I do not know why it seems to me that there was no time for anything. And then, maybe I recoiled from the difficulty of the task and the fear of speaking ill of a man for whom I entertain a high and very special esteem. Lay down brief notes and quick service of art so complicated and so primitive, so clear and dark, so barbarous and refined Mr. Gauguin, is it not something impossible, I mean above my strengths? To understand such a man and such a work would require developments that forbids the parsimonious requirement for a review. However, I believe that showing, firstly, the intellectual tie Mr. Gauguin and summarizing, for some traits, his strange and troubled life, work lights, itself, a bright light.

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Paul Gauguin was born to parents, if not rich, at least knew that the ease and sweetness of life. His father was working at the National , Armand Marrast with Thiers and Degouve-Denuncques. He died at sea in 1852, During a trip to Peru, which was, I believe, an exile. He is remembered as a strong mind and high intelligence. His mother, born in Peru, was the daughter of Flora Tristan, this beautiful, passionate, energetic, Flora Tristan, author of many books of socialism and art, and who took such an active part in the movement of phalansterians. I know about her book: Walks in London, where there are wonderful, generous impulses of pity. Paul Gauguin was, therefore, from the cradle, the example of these two moral forces which are formed and soak their superior minds: the fight and dream. Very soft and pampered was his childhood. It developed, happy in this atmosphere, while still steeped in the spiritual influence of the extraordinary man who was certainly the greatest of this century, the only one in which, since Jesus has truly embodied the meaning of divine Fourier.

at the age of sixteen, he enlisted as a sailor to stop studies that cost too much to her mother because the fortune was gone with the dead father. He travels. He crossed uncharted seas, suns going under new sees landraces and prodigious floras. And he does not think so. He thinks of nothing, at least he thinks he does think of nothing but his hard work to which he devoted all his activity as a young man in good health and well muscled. Yet in the silence of the night shift, unconsciously, he makes the taste of the dream and the infinite, and, sometimes, hours of rest, he draws, but without any purpose and as for "killing time".

He has not yet received a big shock and it has not yet felt the passion born of art that will grab him and hug the whole, soul and flesh, until the pain, to torture. He did point consciousness impressions huge, powerful, varied, a phenomenon Collection insensitive and latent, enter, accumulate, enter, unwittingly, in his brain so deeply that later returned to normal life, it comes the haunting nostalgia of these suns, these races, these floras, this Pacific Ocean, where he surprised to find as the cradle of her race to him, and who seems to have rocked in the past, songs, nursery already heard.

Here he returned to Paris, his service ended. It has loads; he must live and do support his family. Mr. Gauguin into business. To the casual observer, it will not be one of the least unexpected quirks of this existence, that the transition to the Stock Exchange this supreme artist, like content from a book jobber. Far from smothering him in the dream begins, the stock market develops it, it gives shape and direction. Because, in haughty natures, and who know how to look, the Exchange is powerfully evocative of human mystery. A great and tragic symbol lies within her. Above the fray furious with the din of screaming passion, these actions twisted, frightening shadows of these, it seems that plane and survived the terror of a cult cursed. I would not be surprised that Mr. Gauguin, by a natural contrast, a spirit of rebellion necessary to have then won the painful love of Jesus, love later inspire his finest designs.

Meanwhile, rises in him a new being. The revelation is almost suddenly. All the circumstances of his birth, his travels, his memories, his present life, amalgamated and melted one in the other, determine an explosion of his faculties artists, all the stronger it was more delayed and slow to occur. Passion invades, grows, consumes him. All the time let him free his professional work, he uses it to paint. He paints with rage. Art becomes concern unique. It lingers in the Louvre, consults with contemporary masters. His instinct leads to metaphysical artist, great tamer of the line, the major synthetic form. He is passionate about Puvis de Chavannes, Degas, Manet, Monet, Cezanne, Japanese, known at that time only a privileged few. Curiously enough, which is due to runaway youth, and better, by the inexperience of a profession that makes it appropriate for the term evil dreams, despite his admiration intellectual, aesthetic predilections, his first tests are naturalists. It strives to overcome this defect, because he feels strongly that Naturalism is the elimination of art, as it is the negation of poetry, the source of all emotion, all beauty, all life, is not on the surface of people and things, and that it lies in the depths where the hook no longer reaches the nocturnal scavengers.

But how? How to meditate? It is, every minute, stopped in his outbursts. The Exchange is here that claims it. We can follow the same time, a dream and the price of stocks, to marvel ideal visions, only to fall immediately, from the height of heaven into hell liquidations of fifteen and deferrals. Mr. Gauguin hesitate. He abandoned the stock, which made him easy material life, and he devoted himself entirely to painting, despite the threat of harsh aftermath and uncertainties likely tomorrow. Thank you without years of struggle, effort terrible despair and drunkenness, in turn. This difficult period where the artist is looking, when a series of landscapes which were exhibited, I believe, rue Laffitte, in the Impressionists. Already affirmed, despite inevitable reminiscences, a talented painter higher talent strong, willful, almost fierce, and with this charming and sensitive, because he is very understanding of light and the ideals it gives objects. Already his paintings, too full of details still show in their order, a special decorative taste, taste that Mr. Gauguin has since grown to perfection in his recent paintings, his pottery in a style so strange , and its wood-carved art if a shudder.

Despite its apparent moral strength, Mr. Gauguin is a restless nature, tormented forever. Never satisfied with what he has done, he goes looking, always, beyond. He feels he did not give him what he can give it. Things confused in his restless soul of vague aspirations and powerful spirit tend to track more abstract forms of expression more fitting. And his thinking refers to the countries of light and mystery he once crossed. It seems that there is, sleeping, untouched, new art elements according to their dream. Then, it is solitude, which he so desperately needs, is peace and there is silence, where he listens better, he feels more live. He left for Martinique. He stayed for two years, reduced by the disease: yellow fever which he nearly died and that it is months and months heal. But he brings a series of stunning paintings and severe where he has won, finally, his whole personality, and mark a huge step forward, rapid delivery to art hoped. Forms can be very much not only in their external appearance, they reveal the mindset of one who has understood and well expressed. There is in these sub-timber vegetation, flora monstrous, hieratic figures to the incredible cast of sunshine, almost religious mystery, an abundance of holy Eden. And the drawing was relaxed, expanded, he said that the essential things, thought. The dream duct in the majesty of the contours, the spiritual synthesis, expression eloquent and profound. Now, Mr. Gauguin is master of himself. His hand became a slave, docile and faithful instrument of his brain. He will work to achieve long-sought.

Work strangely cerebral, exciting, yet uneven, but even in his poignant and beautiful inequalities painful work, because to understand, to feel the impact, it must be self-experienced pain and irony of pain, which is the threshold of the mystery. Sometimes it rises to the height of a mystic act of faith, and sometimes she is terrified grimace in the dark of doubt maddening. And it always comes from the bitter and violent poisons flavor of the flesh. There is in this work a mixture of concern and tasty barbaric splendor of Catholic liturgy, dream Hindu Gothic imagery, symbolism, obscure and subtle, there are harsh realities and frantic flights of poetry, where Mr. Gauguin Art creates a personal and absolutely brand new, contemporary painter and poet, and an apostle of the devil, and anxiety.

In the whole country yellow-yellow dying at the top of the hill Breton a late fall sadly yellows in the sky, stands a crucifix, a rough-hewn wooden Calvary, rotten, leaking, who extends his arms in the air bent. Christ as a deity Papuan summarily carved into a tree by a local artist, Christ is pathetic and barbaric daubed with yellow. At the foot of the plight of farmers have knelt. Indifferent, the body slumped heavily on the earth, they came here because it is the habit of coming there, a day of forgiveness. But their eyes and lips are empty of prayers. They do not have a thought, not a look for the image of Him who died for the love. Already spanning hedges, and fleeing in apple red, other farmers are rushing to their lair, happy to have finished their devotions. And the melancholy of the wooden Christ is indescribable. His head has frightful sadness, his flesh was lean as torture regret 1y old, and he seems to say, seeing at his feet and this wretched humanity that does not include: "And yet, though my martyrdom was unnecessary ? "

This is the work that begins the series of symbolic paintings of Mr. Gauguin. Unfortunately I can not elaborate more on this art that I liked so much to study in its different forms: sculpture, ceramics, painting. But I hope that this brief description will suffice to reveal the mindset of this artist so special, set to high, the noble wills.

It seems that Mr. Gauguin reached this level of thought, such breadth of style, should acquire a serenity, peace of mind, rest. But no. The dream never rests in that ardent brain grows and exalted as it is formulated more. And now he comes back the nostalgia of those countries where s'égrenèrent his early dreams. It would revive, solitary, a few years, among the things he left of him there. Here, few were spared torture him, and great sorrows have overwhelmed. He lost a dearly loved friend, fondly admired, poor Vincent Van Gogh, one of the most beautiful painter's temperament, one of the most beautiful souls artist who gave us hope. And then the relentless demands of life. The same need for silence, meditation and solitude, which prompted him to Martinique, shoot, this time even further, to Tahiti, where nature is better suited to his dream, he hopes that Pacific Ocean will be for him the tenderest caresses, an old love and safe ancestor found. Where he goes, Mr. Paul Gauguin can be assured that our piety will accompany it.

MIRBAU Octave. "Paul Gauguin." L'Echo de Paris, February 16, 1891

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Find the primitive, "being dreamed that Mallarmé refers " primitive man supreme , c that is to say, the man who came back and re-tempered with the laws essential to the precepts blocks of life, without losing the achievements amassed by centuries. "

Charles Morice. Paul Gauguin. " Mercure de France, in December 1893