Bright colours masked French artist Paul Gauguin’s dark reality

WHEN French artist Paul Gauguin stepped ashore in Tahiti the islanders may have had trouble working him out, but he came with preconceived ideas of them

Tahitian Women, 1891, oil on canvas, by Paul Gauguin. Picture: National Gallery of Australia.

WHEN the foreigner stepped ashore the Tahitian locals were not sure what to make of him, but he had already made up his mind about them. French artist Paul Gauguin was convinced that Tahiti was a pristine paradise where people, unspoilt by modern life, sang and made love all day. At least that was what he told friends before sailing off on an adventure that would turn him from a struggling artist into one of the great Post Impressionists.

But despite the genius of his works, Gauguin’s time in Tahiti, the subject of new film, Gauguin, opening this week in cinemas across Australia, was much darker than the brilliant hues he used to portray in both his paintings and published diary titled Noa Noa.

Gauguin left France for virtual exile in Tahiti in desperation when his career was floundering. He alienated himself from the art world in Paris, but he also distanced himself from the Polynesians he tried to befriend.

French artist Paul Gaugin circa 1891.

Paul Gauguin in 1894. Picture: MoMA

Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin was born on June 7, 1848, in Paris, France, 170 years ago next Thursday. He was the son of a liberal journalist, Clovis Gauguin, who took his family to Peru in 1850 because Napoleon III was increasing his grip on power in France. His father died en route to Peru but his half-Peruvian mother, Alina Chazal, stayed with her children on an estate in Lima belonging to an uncle. There Gauguin lived an idyllic life, waited on by servants. It left an impression.

His mother returned to France in 1854 with the family when the political situation in Peru turned bad. Gauguin was sent to Catholic schools and a naval school before joining the merchant marine at the age of 17.

After six years of sailing the world, he returned home and later became a stockbroker, with help from businessman Gustave Arosa, who became legal guardian of his younger siblings when his mother died in 1867. In 1873 Gauguin married Danish woman Mette Sophie Gad.

Arosa owned an impressive collection of art by leading artists, which inspired Gauguin to work on his own painting skills.

Self-portrait with halo and snake, 1889, oil on wood, by Paul Gauguin.

Portrait of the artist with The Yellow Christ, 1889, oil on canvas, by Paul Gauguin.

In 1874 he met Impressionist Camille Pissaro who became a mentor and teacher and in 1876 one of Gauguin’s paintings was accepted for display in the Paris Salon, an annual exhibition sponsored by the French Government. By 1880 his work was included in the Impressionists’ fifth exhibition.

The French stockmarket crash of 1882 saw him unemployed. He took various jobs to make ends meet but also decided to focus on his art. He went to Brittany in 1886 to live simply, but decided he needed an even more authentic native experience, trying to recapture the tropical paradise of his youth. In 1887 he went to Martinique, “to live like a savage”, which had an influence on his art, with bright, undiluted, colour.

When he returned to France he styled himself as someone slightly exotic and “savage”, descended from Peruvians.

Tahitian Women, 1891, oil on canvas, by Paul Gauguin. Picture: National Gallery of Australia.

Manao Tupapau (Spirit of the Dead Watching), 1892, oil on canvas, by artist Paul Gauguin.

Seed Of The Areoi, 1892, oil on hessian, by Paul Gauguin. Picture: MoMA

Abandoning his family he went to live with like-minded artists in Pont-Aven. He was looking to return to more “primitive” ideas in art, aiming to infuse works with more emotion. From there Gauguin travelled to Arles where he lived briefly with Vincent van Gogh before their infamous argument that resulted in part of van Gogh’s ear being severed, possibly with a sword wielded by Gauguin (although they both agreed that van Gogh mutilated his own ear).

But critics were hostile to his artistic vision and money was running low. In 1891 he returned to Tahiti to paint images of a primitive island paradise. When he arrived he found the capital Papeete disappointingly westernised, but he still painted people and scenes of Tahitian life as primitive with naked torsos and simple lifestyles. He even imported carved idols to use in the paintings.

Behind his patronising paintings of serene or even impassive savages was a darker reality. He drank heavily and took young lovers, battering them or infecting them with diseases he had contracted in France.

Artist Paul Gauguin's grave in the Calvary Cemetery of Atuona on Hiva Oa, the second largest island of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia.

Returning to France in 1893, he continued to present himself as an exotic primitive outsider. He had moderate success with one exhibition in 1894, but a second exhibition in 1895 and the publication of his Tahitian diary did not go as well as expected. His scandalous behaviour, openly conducting an affair with a 13-year-old girl known as “Anna la Javanaise”, also made him a social pariah. So he returned to the Pacific in 1895.

Gauguin’s poor treatment of more child brides saw him having to move, until in 1901 he moved to the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, where he could live more cheaply and simply.

He died of syphilitic heart failure in Atuona, in the Marquesas, in May 1903. However, it was only after his death that his paintings became recognised as works of genius.