February 20, 2011

Elsewhere: Paul Gauguin

It is well-known that Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin were once bosom friends apart from their individual achievement as eminent painters. Their friendship is exceptionally meaningful to me and my friend, Rita after we visited their special exhibitions held in Taiwan. Last year, we both took the “Introduction to Art” course which final report was personal reflection about the “Van Gogh: The Flaming Soul” exhibition. I happened to get two free tickets, so we saw it together and departed with vast knowledge of Van Gogh. This year, Rita also had an extra ticket to the Gauguin’s exhibition and treated me in return. I could not help but associate our relationship with the two artists, as if we are the embodiment of their friendship (notwithstanding their break up in discord in the end). The coincidence that we both had extra ticket to share with each other further heightened my expectation of the exhibition as we set out the pilgrimage to the Taipei Fine Art Museum this Wednesday.

The title of the exhibition “Elsewhere: Paul Gauguin” suggests that Gauguin was a wanderer in his lifetime who attempted to seek tranquility by drifting around and was exposed to miscellaneous artistic styles accordingly. For example, in the early stage of creation, he was greatly influenced by the Impressionists such as Pissarro, Cézanne and Degas who exerted bright color and vigorous stroke to mark objective nature. However, later on Gauguin came to realize those paintings lacked of genuine feeling, which reminded me of William Wordsworth’s definition of poetry as “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. Therefore, he turned to develop his own style of paintingSynthetismwith the emphasis on the flatness of object, the richness in color without vehicle, and the multi-interpretation of a general painting.

Gauguins’ journey ended in Polynesia where he devoted to primitivism (partly because of his Peruvian blood). I was amazed to learn that people with male and female sexual features or the so-called androgynes are commonly seen in Tahiti. Gauguin described the phenomenon that “There is something virile in the women and something feminine in the men. This similarity of the sexes make their relations the easier”. The representative work was “The Sorcerer of Hiva Oa”. In the foreground, we can see the sorcerer is an androgyne, judging from his male appearance but female costume. A dog is catching a bird in its mouth, symbolizing the approaching death of Gauguin (The work was completed one year prior to his death).The two women in the background dress differently from the sorcerer, which explains that they are from other area, Brittany, Gauguin’s former dwelling place. Therefore, the three objects are more like collage on the canvas that served as a memoir, expressing Gauguin’s recollection of the past and his state of mind at the time.

Despite the well-organized timeline that introduced us to Gauguin’s artworks, I still felt disappointed with this exhibition compared with the Van Gogh’s, especially in terms of the scale and quality. In addition to Gauguin’s oil paintings, the exhibition also showcased his potteries and woodcuts. However, they were not as distinguished as his paintings. What was worse, there were nearly one fourth of the artworks belonging to his pupils. Although I am not qualified to judge their inferiority, I still felt like being deceived; after all, we were attracted by the high reputation of Gauguin. Another deficiency in the exhibition lied in the low quality of the tour. We chose the morning session of the guided tour, hoping to keep away from the crowd. Much to our surprise, the museum was still jammed with a mass of people from the Flower Expo; therefore, scarcely could we squeeze ourselves into the front. In addition, the tour guide seemed to be immersed in reciting a speech within the limited time without interpreting the idea through her own words. During her speech, we even overheard an audience whispering that the other guide had better performance. In comparison with this incompetent guide, I really appreciate the enthusiastic guide in Van Gogh’s exhibition who gave us three-hour lecture of Van Gogh as well as chromatics. It also broke my stereotype that museums with larger scale guarantee greater service. Regardless of the unappeasable grumble about the Gauguin's exhibition, it was still a valuable experience to get to know another artist.



 



 



 



 


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  • 1樓

    1樓搶頭香

    Dear Sophia,
    You and your friend are quite a match, for having ticket for each
    other. I have only been to the Van Gogh exhibition, but it was too
    crwoded then so that I cannot enjoy it.
    Thank you for recording your reflection here and attaching the
    painting(P.S.Remember to put the source!~). Gaugin's observation
    on
    Tahiti and androgyne are very cool.
    I hope I have time to see the exhibition, even though you have some
    complaint to it :P

    Carrie

  • at March 7, 2011 10:45 AM comment
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