A painting of a lush landscape with rolling hills hangs in an ornate frame. If one steps too close, one feels as though they might get sucked in. The grass looks almost like a flowing tide, the viewer can feel the warm summer breeze from just one glance. This painting, “Landscape,” is one of the earliest paintings by Paul Gauguin.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents “Gauguin in the World” through Feb. 16. The exhibition features more than 150 of the French artist’s works.
Through the different rooms, it feels like we are stepping into a photo album of Gauguin’s creations, each one significant and important. Gauguin’s art career began when he started to paint as a sideline to his stockbroker career around 1873.
A standout piece from this era is “Clovis Sleeping,” depicting Gauguin’s five-year-old son. All kinds of animals fly above his sleeping form, a visual metaphor of the boy “flying” off into his dreams.
However, Gauguin was a traveler at heart. Not wanting to stay rooted to one place he left the bustling city of Paris for the “artist colony” in Pont-Aven in Brittany. Here his style began to change from his early Impressionist influences toward bold colors and subjective forms of expression.
Gauguin worked with Emile Bernard to create Synthetism, focusing on memorizing the environment around the painter rather than trying to paint based on a real impression of the world.
Gauguin’s “Children Wrestling” illustrates the tussle and play between two boys. The painting seems to
want to move with them as their bodies move close to a cliff near a waterfall. It gives us a feeling of suspense. Gauguin places the boys on a large dominating swath of green as opposed to the fine features of Impressionistic grass.
Around this time, Gauguin met Vincent Van Gogh and lived with him for two months. However, disputes set them on different paths and Gauguin moved back to Paris.
However, it was not only painting in which Gauguin chose to express himself. He spent his time making prints from zinc plates, as suggested by Van Gogh’s brother. He also carved wood and made pottery, sometimes calling them, “My Monstrosities.”
“Bather Fan” is a small, curved watercolor from 1887-88 is inspired by popularization of Japanese culture in Paris. The composition of sea on one side and land on the other is a mesmerizing view. The colors are not as saturated as in his Synthetism pieces but are brighter than his Impressionistic landscapes. The lies somewhere in the middle.
In 1891, Gauguin left his family and traveled to Tahiti, where he stayed until 1893. This was a bold move. Gauguin was captivated by the Tahitian people and was vocal in his distaste for the culture erasure caused by colonization. In “Tahitian Women,” one woman faces us and wears a missionary-style dress, while other, who wears a traditional Tahitian pareu, sits with her back to the viewer. backs turned on the beach. Women turning away from the gaze of the viewer became a common motif in Gauguin’s works, symbolizing a way of life being hidden away by colonization.
In “Three Tahitians,” the viewer feels as though they stumble across an intimate conversation. The woman on the left turns as if to reprimand the intruder.
Gauguin returned to Paris with a collection of paintings to sell but sold few.
1899, Gauguin left Paris for the last time, moving back to Tahiti. In 1901, he moved to the remote Marquesas Islands, where he lived until his death in 1903. The paintings and prints he created at the end of his life were a return to his roots of still-life and Impressionistic images.
The oil on canvas “Bouquet of Flowers” depicts a pot of blooming flora with reds, purples, pinks and blues. The vibrant colors of the flowers are reminiscent of Gauguin’s Synthetist stylings.
In “Still Life with Hope,” Gauguin makes an obvious nod to Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” as well as other objects that reference his past friendships. It feels as though the artist is remembering the times he made art with his old friends.
His last self-portrait is the most authentic he painted. While his earlier self-portraits are livelier and showy, in “Portrait of the Artist by Himself,” the background is plain, his hair is gray and his shirt a plain white. He has painted himself just as he is.
“Gauguin in the World” is a sight to behold. Like Van Gogh, Gauguin was not appreciated until his death. However, he quickly became recognized as an important foundational figure in the development of Modernism.
The exhibition is not only visually beautiful but also full of emotion. It is a must-see for anyone interested in the development of art.
“Gauguin in the World” continues through Feb. 16. For more information, visit mfah.org.
