Sarah Kapp Art History and Visual Studies Major (honours) Business Minor De-Mythicizing the Artist: Presented March 6, 2019 This research was supported by the Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award University of Victoria Supervised by Dr. Catherine Harding How Gauguin Responded to the Art Market Assistance from Dr. Melissa Berry Political Conditions Introduction Imperialism and Primitivism in the Late-Nineteenth Century Like celebrities, famous artists face rumours and myths Gauguin’s stylistic innovations were just one component of his self-promotional endeavor that overwhelm their public reception. Vincent van Gogh that appeared in the Volpini Suite. It was his engagement with ‘primitive’ subject- has become inextricably linked to the tale of the tortured matter—which included depictions of local peasant and folk culture—that served as a soul who sliced off his ear; Pablo Picasso to the tale fashionable and marketable technique (Perry 6). In the 1889 suite, Gauguin depicted of the womanizing innovative artist; and Salvador Dalí people in their daily surroundings, including: Breton peasant women chatting, Martinican as the eccentric artist who did too many drugs. This women carrying baskets of fruit, and women from Arles out walking (Juszczak 119). research dismantles the myth of Paul Gauguin (1848- After his creation of the Volpini Suite, Gauguin’s use of ‘primitive’ subjects intensified, 1903), who, in the late-twentieth century, became ultimately becoming a defining feature of his artistic practice. Gauguin’s work in the the target of feminist and post-colonialist theorists, Volpini Show correlated to contemporary ideas about the ‘primitive’. The Exposition who criticized him for sexualized depictions of young Universelle juxtaposed the newly built Eiffel Tower and the Gallery of Machines with women, as well as ‘plagiarizing’ and ‘pillaging’ the art ethnographic exhibits from around the world (Chu 439). In previous years, these colonial of other cultures (Broude 2-3). In analyzing Gauguin’s displays included the presentation of raw materials and manufactured goods from work, scholars have fallen into the trap of biography non-Western (or so-called ‘primitive’) cultures; the show was substantially enlarged in and have largely overlooked the precise historical 1889 with the addition of live human exhibits known as human zoos (439). context in which he worked. By acknowledging the complex economic, social and political conditions of the late-nineteenth century, Gauguin can be freed from the constraints of biography; his relationship to the art Gauguin, Paul. Self-Portrait with Portrait of market and self-promotional strategies can mediate his Émile Bernard (Les misérables). 1888. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 21 Mar. 2019. reception. The Gauguin Problem Art historical scholarship that villainizes Gauguin is primarily focused on his ‘Tahitian period’, after he travelled to the island in 1891. This period is characterized by numerous depictions of naked local women posed in nature: this has shaped Gauguin’s reputation Gauguin, Paul. The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel). 1888. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 21 Mar. 2019. as a womanizer and cultural appropriator. In 1972, Linda Nochlin produced a photograph of a nude male model holding a platter of bananas beneath his genitals, with the caption “buy my bananas” (Broude 1). Nochlin was attempting to expose the reality of Economic Conditions the male gaze in Gauguin’s art, but her analysis led to numerous ahistorical readings of his work that fail to recognize the precise socio-economic context in which he was The Stock Market Crash of 1882 Gauguin, Paul. Volpini Suite: Gauguin, Paul. Volpini Suite: The Grasshoppers Bretonnes à la Barrière. 1889. and the Ants, A Souvenir of Martinique. 1889. working. The Paris stock market crash in 1882 not only shook the financial world – the art Wikimedia Commons. Web. Picryl. Web. 21 Mar. 2019. world too was impacted by a volatile market. With more artists producing than buyers 21 Mar. 2019. willing to pay, art collectors and enthusiasts controlled prices (Ward 61). To remain competitive, artists had to distinguish themselves from their contemporaries (Green 41). Ultimately, the illusion of rarity increased the value of art. Beyond Biography Artists and Market Forces The Volpini Suite is an early example of Gauguin’s self-promotional endeavours in the Biography is a useful tool of analysis but it must be combined with a sense of the 1890s, which later intensified in Tahiti. Gauguin was encouraged to make the suite economic, social and political realities that an artist faces in their time. Rather than by his dealer Theo van Gogh, who knew that the prints were not only attractive to tell inaccurate myths about important artists, my research indicates that the art world specialized print collectors – their low cost appealed to aspiring collectors as well needs a better understanding of how artists (past and present) orient themselves to (Brettell 63). The suite presented itself as an opportunity for Gauguin to market himself market forces. and his artwork as unique. Works Cited Social Conditions Brettell, Richard R. “Gauguin and Paper. Writing, Copying, Drawing, Painting, Pasting, The Final Impressionist Exhibition of 1886 Cutting, Wetting, Tracing, Inking, Printing.” Paul Gauguin: Artist of Myth and Dream, Gauguin’s motivation to create the Volpini Suite stemmed from his desire to detach edited by Stephen F. Eisenman, Skira Editore S.p.A., 2007, pp. 59-67. himself from the French exhibiting society known as the Impressionists (Thomson 42). Broude, Norma. “Introduction: Gauguin after Postmodernism.” Gauguin’s Challenge, Gauguin, Paul. Parau api: What News? Gauguin, Paul. Two Tahitian Women. 1899. In the final Impressionist exhibition in 1886, Gauguin’s work was largely overshadowed edited by Norma Broude, Bloomsbury Publishing Inc., 2018, pp. 1-12. 1892. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 21 Mar. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 21 Mar. 2019. Chu, Petra ten-Doesschate. Nineteenth-Century European Art. Laurence King Publishing 2019. by Georges Seurat’s Sunday on La Grande Jatte (1884-86), which featured his new Pointillist technique. In a review of the 1886 exhibition, anarchist art critic, Félix Fénéon, Ltd, 2006. praised Seurat for his new and innovative techniques, while he pegged Gauguin’s Fénéon, Félix, and Belinda Thomson. “The Impressionists in 1886, Art in Translation.” work as unexciting (Fénéon and Thomson 273). Disappointed by his weak critical Art in Translation, vol. 6, no. 3, 2014, pp. 271-285. Taylor & Francis Online, doi:10.275 The Volpini Suite reception, Gauguin travelled to Brittany, Martinique, and Arles between 1886 and 1888 2/175613114X14043084852958. Gauguin Defines Himself (Juszczak 119). This two-year period marks the beginning of Gauguin’s self-styling; it Juszczak, Agnieszka. “The Iconography of the Volpini Suite.” Paul Gauguin: The was during his travels that Gauguin consciously developed a new stylistic technique Breakthrough into Modernity, edited by Barbara Bradley and Laurence Channing, Hatje In 1889, Gauguin, with the assistance of called Synthetism. Cantz Verlag, 2010, pp.119-163. artists Émile Bernard (1868-1941) and Émile Lemonedes, Heather. “Gauguin Becomes a Printmaker.” Paul Gauguin: The Breakthrough Schuffenecker (1851-1934), organized an into Modernity, edited by Barbara Bradley and Laurence Channing, Hatje Cantz Verlag, exhibition at the Café des Arts on the grounds 2010, pp. 87-117. of Exposition Universelle in Paris (Thomson Perry, Gill. “Primitivism and the ‘Modern’.” Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early 29). At the Volpini Show, Gauguin exhibited Twentieth Century, edited by The Open University, Yale University Press, 1993, pp. 17 works (54), as well as a limited-edition set 3-85. of eleven canary yellow-coloured prints that Thomson, Belinda. “Gauguin Goes Public.” Paul Gauguin: The Breakthrough into were listed as ‘available upon request’ in the Modernity, edited by Barbara Bradley and Laurence Channing, Hatje Cantz Verlag, exhibition catalogue (Brettell 62). The Volpini 2010, pp. 29-73. Suite was Gauguin’s first album of prints and Ward, Martha. “Impressionist Installations and Private Exhibitions.” Critical Readings ultimately served as both a visual résumé and an in Impressionism & Post-Impressionism, edited by Mary Tompkins Lewis, University of advertisement of his unique style and subject- California Press, 2007, pp. 49-73. Gauguin, Paul. Frontispiece for the Volpini Suite: Leda matter (Lemonedes 87). Seurat, Georges. A Sunday Afternoon on the Gauguin, Paul. Cow in a Meadow, Rouen. 1884. and the Swan. 1889. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 21 Island of on La Grande Jatte. 1884-86. Wikimedia Wikimedia Commons. Web. 21 Mar. 2019. Mar. 2019. Commons. Web. 21 Mar. 2019. .