Paul Gauguin: an unusual biography of an unusual man. Projects and books

Frozen in motionless poses near the huts of women, without moving, a fisherman sits by the boat, a mother and child are squatting. Monumental figures of people are associated with nature and seem to be part of it. There is no sense of movement even in those scenes where the characters, judging by the nature of the composition, are about to hit the road. The atmosphere of the picture is permeated with silence; neither the sound of the wind, nor the rustle of leaves, nor the splash of waves is felt. The group of women sitting on the lawn is also motionless. The artist called the painting “Words, Words” (or “Conversation”), probably referring to the futility of reasoning, without which everything is already clear. Many of the artist’s canvases have strange names: “Nave nave moe”, “Rave te hiti aamu”, “Farari maru-ru”. Some of them are easy to decipher, others still pose a mystery.

Not only the works are unusual, but also the life of Paul Gauguin, full of vicissitudes. He was born in 1848 in Paris and graduated life path in 1903 on the small island of Hiva Oa in Oceania. His father was a journalist, and his mother’s distant relatives belonged to the top of the Spanish-Peruvian nobility and lived in Peru. Memories of the country of childhood, a large, noisy patriarchal family, left a bright mark in the heart of the future artist. They merged with the idea of ​​an idyllic life in the tropics, bright colors and hot sun.

First impressions had a decisive influence on the formation artistic tastes Gauguin, although until the age of 23 nothing foreshadowed his interest in art. The dream of distant countries will not leave the young man even upon his return to France. At the age of sixteen, he is hired as a cabin boy on a merchant ship and makes several voyages to the shores of South America. After parting with the fleet in 1871, Gauguin settled in Paris.

It may seem that he lives in the interests of an ordinary bourgeois - he becomes wealthy, gets married, and acquires a collection of paintings. The only unusual thing was his sudden passion for art, which gradually but powerfully crowds out other interests from his life. In 1883, he quit his job at the bank; prosperity soon gave way to need. Gauguin is forced to leave Paris, leaving five children and his wife in her homeland in Copenhagen. From now on, his destiny is loneliness, lack of money, wandering, the struggle for recognition, which came only after death.

The first, student period of Gauguin is closely connected with impressionism the artistic direction of the second half of the 19th century century. But the school of impressionism was only the beginning of the formation of creative interests, as for other post-impressionists - Van Gogh, Cezanne, Seurat. Each of them subsequently went their own way of searching and finding.

Leaving Paris for nature, Gauguin excludes it from his work. The city becomes for him a symbol of the dominance of businessmen. Everything in modern bourgeois culture provokes his protest - the way of life, artistic canons. Wherever the artist goes from now on, dreams that far from Paris and European civilization everything will turn out differently accompany his actions and creative ideas.

Brittany, northern France, where Gauguin spent a number of years and created his first masterpieces, soon ceased to satisfy him as an artist. The Breton world is a quiet, mournful world, here the connections between man and nature are reflected not in harmonious correspondence, but in the subjection of people to harsh, hostile elements. His eye, searching for colorful explosions, encounters muted half-tones of the Breton earth, granite blocks, clumsy figures in shabby clothes. The dream of countries where a stream of sunlight flows takes possession of the artist. He is convinced that people far from bourgeois civilization live a joyful, natural life in the bosom of generous nature, obeying the eternal laws of existence. Gauguin recalls that the blood of the ancient Incas flows in his veins, and he hopes to find a source of inspiration on an island lost far away in Oceania, this is necessary for his art.

On June 8, 1891, after 63 days of sailing, Gauguin set foot on the land of “Noa Noa” “Fragrant” of the island of Tahiti. The day before he turned 43 years old. The artist was destined to live only twelve more years, but it was during these years that works were created that immortalized his name. Fifteen paintings were also painted there, in Oceania, which now adorn the halls of the Hermitage.

The very first contact with reality showed Gauguin that “civilization” in the person of colonial officials, traders and soldiers had long triumphed in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti. “The Childhood of Humanity,” that idyllic past in search of which he left France, must also be sought here outside the city. The artist settles in south coast islands, in Mataiea, between the sea and a mountain with a huge chasm covered by a mighty mango tree. The first Tahitian paintings were painted here. The artist conveys in them direct impressions of what he saw - typical poses of people, the nature of nature.

Gauguin was struck in Tahiti by the statuesque immobility of people, which evoked a feeling of the immutability of existence and was in full agreement with the artist’s ideas about the primordial world. Therefore, in Gauguin’s paintings, the poses of Tahitians are always calm, stable, and harmonious. The woman holding the fruit (in the composition of the same name) can seem to stand for centuries without moving. This gives a special flavor to the Tahitian title of the painting, “Eu haere ia oe” (“Go!”).

Discarding the random, the artist strives to reveal in the canvases that spiritual world, the mood contained in surrounding nature. Art is a generalization that one must be able to extract from nature, this is Gauguin’s main thesis. And he finds forms and images that most fully convey the characteristic features in the appearance and behavior of the Tahitians. Hence the frequent repetition of similar poses, gestures, faces in a number of paintings, hence several variants of one composition. It would seem that Gauguin’s paintings are simple in plot, nothing happens in them - people sit, stand, lie. But none of them is a repetition of nature, although everything is built on real observations.

The way the artist summarizes his accumulated impressions can be seen in the example of the painting “Tahitian Pastorals”. The word “pastoral” itself takes on a new meaning here. There are no shepherdesses or nymphs in the composition, but two ordinary Tahitian women, one with a pipe at her lips, the other carrying underwear. But the artist transforms these simple details into “a landscape of dreams, entirely created.” Everything froze, as if in a dream, as in an enchanted dream world: a woman froze as she walked, either listening to something or immersed in thought. The orange-red dog is spread out on the ground, the branches of the trees are motionless, echoing the contours of the body of the standing Tahitian woman. The figures of women are separated from each other by a tree, their faces are turned in opposite directions. This, as it were, expands the boundaries of the composition beyond the depicted space, where the main character is music diffused in nature, quiet, barely audible in the midst of complete silence. The artist uses the symbolic, emotional sound of colors. Green next to red, yellow next to red determine the sound of the third, main one, uniting all colors into a common chord, this is green Veronese, which was often used in fresco painting.

The return to France, caused by the desire to show his works, illness, need, did not change anything in Gauguin’s life and artistic beliefs. Oceanic impressions come to life again in Parisian canvases woven from images of the recent past. However, both enemies and friends, with rare exceptions, did not accept Gauguin’s art. His paintings were subjected to harsh, mocking criticism. The artist comes to the decision to leave France forever. In the autumn of 1895 he was again in Tahiti.

Here Gauguin perceives with particular acuteness the beauty of the Tahitian landscape. Despite life’s adversities, the joyful, major sound of colors distinguishes his “Pie”: the sun poured like molten gold into the waters of the ocean, emphasizing the blue of the island on the horizon.

The artist’s creativity is enriched by a new, organic perception of the art of the East; he includes elements of art in his arsenal of means of depiction archaic Greece. The artist's eye notices the resemblance primitive cultures different peoples.

The style of ancient Egyptian paintings receives a unique interpretation in The Pie. The slight modeling of the Tahitian's body gives some volume to his figure, obscuring the silhouette characteristic of Egyptian art - with the shoulders turned in front, and the head and legs in profile. The painting also shows the influence of Japanese prints in the clear lines with which the space is constructed. The arm of a lying woman, bent at the elbow, repeats, as if in a mirror image, the gesture of the Tahitian’s hand. A skillful juxtaposition of gestures and poses, a diagonally placed boat and the vertical of a tree define two spatial plans.

Gauguin paints “The Pie,” like many other canvases, on a rough canvas, the uneven, rough surface of which creates the appearance of an old fresco damaged by time. A born monumentalist and decorator, who dreamed of wall paintings even in France, Gauguin widely uses this technique in his paintings.

The painting “Baby” has a different character. It was executed shortly after the death of the artist’s child and his Tahitian wife, Vahine. But, as always, the content of the picture is broader than Gauguin’s personal experience.

1897 is one of the most difficult years in Gauguin’s life: he learns about the death of his daughter left in Europe, experiences physical suffering from illness, and at times loses his sight. Having decided to commit suicide, he paints a monumental canvas - a kind of spiritual testament “Where do we come from, who are we, where are we going?”, the result of the master’s thoughts about human destinies, the eternal cycle of nature.

The Hermitage paintings are also associated with this composition: “Tahitian Landscape with Two Goats” and “Man Picking Fruit from a Tree.”

However, the love of life and art prevails over Gauguin's gloomy thoughts. This is evidenced by numerous works in subsequent years, some of which are associated with the large panel “Preparations for the Holiday.” Among them are two paintings from the Hermitage: “Three Tahitian women on a yellow background” and “Woman with flowers in her hands” (“Month of May”, “Month of Mary”, that is, the awakening of nature, the beginning of spring). The artist returns to the theme of primeval paradise. The landscape is reduced to a conventional golden background, or rather, an environment in which ethereal “paradise” creatures live.

Images human figure and landscapes turn into a play of stylized forms. The decorative pattern is also present in the painting “Motherhood” (“Three women on the seashore”). The smooth line of the drawing combines the figures of the Tahitian women with the landscape. A piece of red fabric in the clothes of one of them seems to unwind, turning into a ribbon of coral-colored sand, going deep into the frame. The blue cape on the woman’s shoulder blends seamlessly with the blue of the sea. The theme of motherhood appears as a great mystery of nature, before which women who bring gifts stop in awe.

A surge of creative energy prompted Gauguin in 1901 to take his last trip further into the depths of Oceania, the island of Hiva Oa. The illness makes it impossible for him to leave the house for a long time, and he turns to compositions with flowers, especially sunflowers, more often than before. Gauguin enlivens color harmonies with reverent brush strokes and light blue shadows. It is difficult to imagine that the works of the last two years of his life were executed by an artist experiencing severe physical suffering and half-blind. In addition, he complicated his existence on the island with a conflict with the colonial authorities, who were quick to crack down on his work. After the artist’s death, not a single work of his remained either in Tahiti or Hiva Oa. The Gauguin Museum in Tahiti, created half a century later, has only photographic reproductions of them.

Like the masters of the past, Gauguin had inexhaustible energy and a breadth of creative interests; he was a painter and draftsman, sculptor and woodcarver, ceramicist, critic and writer. He is one of those masters whose creations are a milestone in the history of art. The artist rescued the poetic world of Oceanian culture from oblivion and brought to us the luxury of its forms and colors.

27.11.2016

At the age of 54, on May 8, 1903, an almost useless person dies from a serious long-term illness. French artist Paul Gauguin. There are not always happy endings in life. No matter how hard you work, work tirelessly every day without days off, no matter how strongly you believe in your success and be dedicated to your work, you still won’t get anything in the end. “Failures have haunted me since childhood. I have never known happiness or joy, always only misfortunes. And I exclaim: “Lord, if you exist, I accuse you of injustice and cruelty,” wrote Paul Gauguin, while in the process of creating his own famous painting“Where are we from? Who are we? Where are we going?”, after writing which he attempted suicide.

But let's start our story back in 1884, when Paris plunged into a severe financial crisis. Paul Gauguin then worked as a stockbroker, just like the famous one in his time. Having ruined several important deals in a row, our hero found himself on the street and made absolutely no attempts to go back or find himself new job. In fact, he had long been waiting for the right moment to give up everything and do what caused him sincere joy and passion - painting. He took a serious risk, because, firstly, he was just an amateur, and secondly, he painted in a new, unpopular impressionist style that was not in demand among ordinary people. After a year of free swimming, Paul Gauguin managed to become thoroughly impoverished.

The harsh winter of 1885 forced his wife and children to go to their parents in Denmark, and Gauguin to work as an advertising poster in order to somehow feed himself. He complained that the struggle for a piece of bread deprives him of the strength and time to do what he really loves; he cannot draw. It was then that he wanted to go to warm exotic countries that loomed in his mind as a stronghold of happiness, romance and a happy life. Walking around the World Exhibition in Paris, watching eastern culture, the ritual dances of Indonesian women in the paintings, he firmly decided to leave the “decaying West”, which does not recognize him and does not allow his wide talent to unfold. Paul Gauguin chose the fabulous exotic Tahiti as his destination, believing that he could find his happiness there.

In 1891, Paul finally fulfills his dream, finding himself on a fabulous exotic island. But will he find his happiness there? Finding himself in a tropical paradise, Gauguin finds unprecedented inspiration and begins to paint picture after picture. During 1892, the artist painted more than 80 canvases. Having received a warm welcome from the authorities from Papeete, who initially suspected that he was some kind of auditor from the metropolis, Gauguin was unable to retain this image. His character showed arrogance, narcissism, arrogance and arrogance. Biographers claim that the reason for this overconfidence was unshakable faith in yourself And your talent. Gauguin had a firm conviction that he - great artist. On the one hand, this helped him endure the most difficult trials that befell him, but on the other hand, it made him many enemies. This is what happened to him in Tahiti, when the first portrait he ordered from a wealthy representative of the local elite was harshly rejected by her. It turns out that as an artist, he was very unique and his works did not create the desired impression in the eyes of ordinary people. After that, that lady spread a rumor throughout the city that the visiting artist had neither talent nor the slightest skill. Needless to say, after this incident no one else ordered portraits from Gauguin, and this was the main way he was going to earn income.

In addition, Gauguin's physical condition had deteriorated greatly, everything pointed to syphilis in the second stage, which he had picked up a long time ago in Paris. Treatment at a local hospital cost him 12 francs a day, and his finances were rapidly dwindling. Soon the money was completely gone, and income was not expected in the near future. He even had to petition to be transported back to Paris at public expense. But by some miracle, while this petition was traveling from Tahiti to France, Paul Gauguin’s life began to slowly improve. The illness subsided, and he himself unexpectedly received several orders for portraits and even acquired a young Tahitian wife. But all this did not last long, after some time both illness and poverty returned with renewed vigor. The artist fell into severe depression and despair. With great difficulty, Gauguin returns to France, where he plans to organize a large exhibition of his works. Until the very last moment he firmly believed what awaited him unheard of success, a real triumph. He believed that his decision to leave and paint in Tahiti was one of the key links to his future success, and now the public is sure to recognize his talent.

And what did he get in the end? Contemptuous, arrogant, indifferent glances of ordinary people who sincerely did not understand the artist’s unusual style. It was complete failure. When the public refused to recognize his genius, he left for tropical lands, so that upon his return he would triumphantly appear before all who underestimated him in his brilliant grandeur. He convinced himself that even if his departure from Paris was akin to flight, his return would be a victory. Instead he got another deafening blow. Newspapers presented Gauguin as a completely sick man who mocked both art and the nature he depicted.

Having barely survived such mockery of his pride, he decided to no longer pursue fame and no longer harbored hopes of gaining public recognition. As he said then, he would go back to the tropical islands, live in peace, and stop painting altogether, except perhaps only for personal pleasure. And you will never have to fight with idiots again. Friends persuaded him to stay, but in 1895 the artist went back to Tahiti, despite all the hardships, poverty and troubles that he experienced there.

Once again in Papeete, illness, poverty and lack of recognition hung over him like an evil fate. The paintings that the artist left in Paris for the purpose of selling them were still not bought by anyone. And in Tahiti, no one needed him at all. Gauguin's already far from idle existence was overshadowed by terrible news. His 19-year-old daughter died, perhaps the only person he loved in his entire life. This news completely broke him. Gauguin wrote then that he was so accustomed to constant misfortunes and failures that he completely stopped feeling both pain and joy. Nothing at all. But gradually the pain penetrated deeper and deeper into his soul, so that now he is completely destroyed. He seriously began to believe that some evil creature in heaven was constantly watching him and showering him with misfortunes so that he would never have peace on earth.

Health problems worsened to such an extent that all my legs were covered with ulcers, wild pains did not allow me to sleep, and then my eyes became inflamed. It was simply impossible to work in such a state. The painkillers stupefied my mind, my head was spinning, and my temperature rose. Between exacerbations of attacks of severe pain and dizziness, he slowly but stubbornly created his legendary creation “Where are we from? Who are we? Where are we going?”, which his descendants later recognize as a spiritual testament. People did not even come close to his house, shying away from it as if from a cursed place infected with leprosy. They really thought that Gauguin had leprosy, but this was not the case.

“Lord, if you exist, I accuse you of injustice and cruelty,” Gauguin exclaimed shortly before his suicide. Many even wanted this to happen faster. But as it turned out, despite the heroic dose of arsenic that the artist took far from home, he managed to survive, since the body rejected such a dose of poison. Exhausted, he fell asleep, and when he woke up, he somehow crawled to his house.

He prayed to God for death, but instead his health improved. Having decided to build himself a large and comfortable house, he took out a huge loan from a bank, still continuing to hope that his paintings would soon begin to be sold out in France. No matter how it is. In order to somehow repay his debts, he got a job as a journalist, and achieved serious success and his business went uphill. He managed to pay off his debts and get back on his feet. But Gauguin did not see anything particularly joyful in this, since his work did not allow him to create paintings, and this is precisely what he saw as his main calling. As a result, he was cut off from his favorite activity for two whole years. Suddenly, “the heavens broke through” and Gauguin received a check for a thousand francs from Paris, finally someone bought several of his paintings. Through the efforts of a certain Ambroise Vollard, who somehow managed to sell paintings by Paul Gauguin, our hero finally managed to leave his job and return to painting. Subsequently, Vollard became Gauguin's regular sponsor, sending him 300 francs every month, in exchange for an ironclad right to buy a certain number of his paintings per year at a fixed price. This is what Paul Gauguin dreamed about all his life.

Having finally found, he decided that it was time to fulfill his old dream and move to the Marquesas Islands, build a big house there and start living the way he always dreamed. And so it happened, he worked very hard, and in his free time he relaxed with friends. However, the idyll did not last too long. The illness returned, and the artist’s health began to rapidly deteriorate. The pain in his legs was so unbearable that he resorted to the help of morphine, which he began to use in dangerous dosages, in the vain hope of drowning out the suffering...

An empty bottle of opium tincture was later found near his bed. Perhaps Gauguin accidentally or deliberately drank too much. A few weeks later, a letter was sent to Paris in which the local bishop reported to his superiors that the only event in their area was the death of an unworthy man named Gauguin, who was a mediocre artist and an enemy of everything decent.

Fame came to the artist after his death. In 1906, 227 of his works were exhibited in Paris.

His canvas “When the Wedding” is currently most expensive painting sold in the world, which was auctioned off in 2015 for $300 million. The closest competitor lags behind by as much as $50 million. It was the life of Paul Gauguin that formed the basis of one of the most famous inspirational books in the world of Somerset Maugham. A crater on Mercury was even named after the artist. There were also several films made about him feature films, among which Wolf on the threshold 1986 and Found paradise 2003, from which I took the picture for the preview. I prepared this material for you under this magnificent track:

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Paul Gauguin was born in 1848 in Paris on June 7. His father was a journalist. After the revolutionary upheavals in France, the father of the future artist gathered his whole family and went to Peru by ship, intending to stay with the parents of his wife Alina and open his own magazine there. But on the way he had a heart attack and died.

Paul Gauguin lived in Peru until he was seven years old. Returning to France, the Gauguin family settled in Orleans. But Paul was completely uninterested in living in the provinces and was bored. At the first opportunity he left the house. In 1865, he hired himself as a worker on a merchant ship. Time passed, and the number of countries visiting the Field increased. Over the course of several years, Paul Gauguin became a real sailor who was in various troubles at sea. Having entered service in the French navy, Paul Gauguin continued to surf the seas and oceans.

After the death of his mother, Paul left the maritime business and took up work at the stock exchange, which his guardian helped him find. The work was good and it seemed that he would work there for a long time.

Marriage of Paul Gauguin

Gauguin was not at all confident in his artistic forces. One day, one of Paul Gauguin's paintings was selected for display at an exhibition, but he did not tell anyone from the family about it.

In 1882, a stock exchange crisis began in the country, and Gauguin's further successful work began to be doubted. It was this fact that helped determine Gauguin’s fate as an artist.

By 1884 Gauguin was already living in Denmark, since there was not enough money to live in France. Gauguin's wife taught French in Denmark, and he tried to engage in trade, but nothing worked out for him. Disagreements began in the family, and the marriage broke up in 1885. The mother remained with 4 children in Denmark, and Gauguin returned to Paris with his son Clovis.

Living in Paris was difficult, and Gauguin had to move to Brittany. He liked it here. The Bretons are a very unique people with their own traditions and worldview, and even their own language. Gauguin felt great in Brittany; his feelings as a traveler awoke again.

In 1887, taking the artist Charles Laval with them, they went to Panama. The trip was not very successful. Gauguin had to work hard to support himself. Having fallen ill with malaria and dysentery, Paul had to return to his homeland. Friends accepted him and helped him recover, and already in 1888 Paul Gauguin moved to Brittany again.

The case of Van Gogh

After this incident, Paul Gauguin spent time traveling between Paris and Brittany. And in 1889, visiting art exhibition in Paris, he decided to settle in Tahiti. Naturally, Gauguin had no money, and he began to sell his paintings. Having saved about 10 thousand francs, he went to the island.

In the summer of 1891, Paul Gauguin set to work, buying a small thatched hut on the island. Many paintings from this time depict Gauguin's wife Tehura, who was only 13 years old. Her parents happily gave her to Gauguin as his wife. The work was fruitful; Gauguin painted many interesting paintings in Tahiti. But time passed, and the money ran out, and Gauguin fell ill with syphilis. He could stand it no longer and left for France, where a small inheritance awaited him. But he didn’t spend much time in his homeland. In 1895, he returned to Tahiti again, where he also lived in poverty and destitution.

Paul Gauguin was born in Paris. At the age of three, after a coup d'etat staged in France by Napoleon III, the boy ended up with his parents in the capital of Peru, Lima.

The naked woman was a common sight in South America, and it had an impact big influence for the whole later life Gauguin. Later, he always felt absolutely free and relaxed in the company of naked women. In 1855, Paul and his mother returned to Paris. At the age of 17, he decided to become a sailor to see the world. After 6 years, he left the sea and decided to become a stockbroker. At first he even became a little rich, and then, after the crash of the Paris stock exchange in 1883, he decided to concentrate all his efforts on art. This decision destroyed his family, doomed him to a half-starved existence and gave the world magnificent works art. Gauguin became close friends with other artists of his time such as Pissarro, Cezanne and Van Gogh, and in the 80s he actively participated in impressionist exhibitions. At the end of 1888, he lived with Van Gogh for two and a half months in the "yellow house" in Arles. They turned out to have completely incompatible characters, and Gauguin left for Paris. In 1891, Gauguin managed to sell thirty of his paintings. Feeling an ever-increasing alienation in relation to his wife and in general to the entire Western civilization, Gauguin left for Tahiti. Gauguin spent the rest of his life in the southern latitudes, returning only once to Europe for two years in 1893. He died in poverty, forgotten by everyone, in the Marquesas Islands.

From his youth, when Gauguin sailed the seas and oceans, and until the last months of his life, when he was dying of syphilis in the Marquesas Islands, Gauguin always led a very stormy and active sex life. In 1873, when he married the tall, beautiful Danish woman Mette Sophie Gaed, Gauguin began to lead a very respectable lifestyle. When in 1883 Gauguin decided to leave his job as a stock exchange broker forever, Mette was terribly angry, and her parents, in whose house in Copenhagen Gauguin and his wife lived for some time, ridiculed him. The situation in the family was tense to the limit. The almost complete lack of money also played an important role in the development of events. Gauguin and Mette divorced. However, even after leaving for Tahiti, Gauguin still hoped that one day Mette and his five children would come to him and they would live together again. They never arrived.

Arriving in Tahiti in 1891, Gauguin found inspiration there and great amount naked women. At first he was just enjoying himself local custom spend nights in his hut every time with new woman. Soon, however, he realized that this wonderful custom greatly interfered with his creativity. He passionately wanted to find one single woman whom he could call his chosen one. Soon, in a neighboring village, he was introduced to a young beautiful girl named Teura. Gauguin immediately liked her. After making sure that she voluntarily entered into an alliance with him and that she did not have any illnesses, Gauguin took Theura to live in his hut. After living together with Gauguin for a week, Theura agreed to stay in his hut. Gauguin later often used Theura as a model for his works.

In 1893, he left for France, leaving the pregnant Theura in Tahiti. In Paris, he resumed his sexual relationship with Juliette Huet, an ugly, reserved woman who worked as a seamstress. He also began a relationship, which later brought him a lot of trouble, with a 13-year-old homeless half-Indian, half-Malay girl, whom everyone called Anna Yavanskaya. She distracted him from work all the time, and when the two of them left for Brittany, it immediately became clear that the locals really didn’t like her. One day she started bullying a group of children passing by. A scuffle broke out, which turned into a fight, during which Gauguin was beaten half to death by those who arrived local residents. They stopped beating him only when he lost consciousness. After some time, when Gogen had not yet fully recovered, Anna left him forever, taking with her all the valuables from the apartment where they lived, except his paintings.

When Gauguin returned to Tahiti in 1895, he was confident that his happy life would continue family life with Teura. It turned out, however, that Teura married an islander. A week. Te Ura, however, lived with Gauguin in his hut, but she was so frightened by the ulcers that appeared on his body from syphilis that she returned back to her husband. Gauguin lost his regular partner, but acquired a large number of new ones. Once he even complained: “These girls are just crazy, they climb right into my bed every night. Tonight, for example, I had three of them at once.” He again began looking for “a serious woman to bring into the house,” and found the pretty 14-year-old Paura. She did not have such a stimulating influence on his work as Theura, but he still painted her naked and later declared: “This is the best thing I have painted.”

In 1901, Gauguin moved to one of the Marquesas Islands and built himself a hut, which he decorated with pornographic photographs. He agreed to have sexual relations with almost all the local women who often came to his hut. They were all driven by curiosity: they really wanted to look at the terrible ulcers that syphilis gave to Gauguin’s legs. When some unfamiliar woman entered his hut, Gauguin took off her clothes, looked at her body, and then said: “I have to draw you.”

In 1903, Gauguin died of a heart attack.

Gauguin once remarked: “In Europe, sexual intercourse is the result of love. In Oceania, love is the result of sexual intercourse. Who is right here? They say that a person who gives his body to another commits a sin. This is a controversial issue... the real sin is committed by the one who sells her body. Women want to be free. This is their right. But it is certainly not men who stand in their way to such freedom. A woman will become free the day she understands that her honor is not kept in the place that is "below her navel. It is on this day that she will become free. And, perhaps, healthier."

Theura's son Emil, born to her from Gauguin, often remembered his famous father and himself hoped to become famous artist. Emil died in complete poverty at the age of 80 in January 1980.

Death and Resurrection

Sending to Once again Vollarou's paintings, Gauguin had serious reasons to insist that the merchant finally send the money he owed him. Despite the fact that Gauguin fought with all his might against the unfair verdict and even entrusted his defense to lawyer Breaux, whom he had once attacked in Wasps, the authorities were determined to put an end to the artist. The verdict passed in Atuon without any legal support, at Gauguin's request, was revised in Tahiti. As a result, at the end of April the final verdict was announced: instead of three months in prison, one and still exorbitant fine of five hundred francs in gold. It was never presented for payment, since postal delays made it possible to do this only after the artist’s death.

There is no doubt that the pain that tormented Gauguin, like his eczema, was of a psychosomatic nature. The very first sentence, pronounced on March 31, could not but affect the artist’s health. After all, this news was not only a harbinger of prison and poverty, but also served as proof of the failure of his struggle for the rights of the natives. After Gauguin’s conviction, they had no choice but to avoid him, because the authorities were persecuting them too, and visiting the disgraced defender meant displeasing the gendarmerie. In addition, twenty-nine natives, whom Gauguin tried to defend after his own trial, were each sentenced to five days in prison and a fine of one hundred francs, which was a completely unthinkable amount for them. So, no matter how hard Gauguin tried, giving all his strength to this struggle and even more, he understood that he would get bogged down in the trap set by the authorities deeper and deeper. All that remained was to abandon any resistance and, abandoning their friends in trouble, leave the islands, leaving the bishop and the gendarmes to do their arbitrary acts. The very thought of this seemed unbearable to the artist, especially since, by doing this, he was depriving his art of the future, since, having betrayed his ideals, he would cease to be the former Gauguin. When he told Monfred last August that he could no longer stay here, he answered bluntly: “Now they look at you as an amazing, legendary artist who sends strange, inimitable works- the final works of a great man, so to speak, who disappeared from the world... You cannot return! In a word, you enjoy immunity along with the great dead. You have already entered the history of art.”

What a murderous mockery every word of this letter sounded when he now re-read it! Monfred could not even imagine that right now, when money was regularly coming from Vollard and Faye, the hatred of the gendarme and the fanaticism of the bishop would be enough to deprive him, while still alive, of this immunity, leaving the only way out - death. Gauguin hurriedly writes to Monfred that he is sending him three paintings, for which he needs to receive one thousand five hundred francs from Fayet: “This is ruin for me and the complete collapse of my health... Do everything as soon as possible and tell Mr. Fayet that I will be with him forever thankful". The pain by that time had become completely unbearable, and he again called Vernier to him. But he could not help the artist in any way, he only changed the bandages on his legs and prescribed opium, however, without too much hope for any result. Several months ago, Gauguin gave Ben Varney the syringe and morphine that he had used during the last attack, begging him never, under any circumstances, to return them. Now the artist turned to him with a plea to forget about this request, and Varney did not have the strength to refuse. It is obvious that Gauguin fell into complete despair.

As soon as the mail gunboat sailed for Tahiti, he locked himself in the “House of Pleasure” for a whole week. On the morning of May 8, Tioka found Gauguin lying on the bed and moaning and decided to go after Pastor Vernier. When the pastor appeared, he found the artist in prostration, not even aware of whether it was day or night. He complained of terrible pain caused by an abscess at the bottom of his spine. Vernier opened the abscess. Having come to his senses, Gauguin said that he lost consciousness twice in the morning, but his head remained clear after that, and he even talked to the pastor about “Salammbo.” This circumstance somewhat reassured Vernier.

“I left him lying on his back, calm and resting after our conversation,” the pastor said, returning to his students. Gauguin's servants were absent, as usual.

“About eleven,” writes Danielsson, “Tioka, who had come to visit the sick man, called to him from below, according to Marquis etiquette, announcing his arrival: “Koke, Koke!” Having heard no answer, he ran up the stairs and saw Gauguin, who was lying on the edge of the bed with his leg hanging down. Tioka grabbed him, grumbling that he was so careless in trying to get out of bed. But again I received no answer. Trying to revive Koke, according to the custom of the Marquesans, he began to bite him on the head, but nothing helped. And then he finally realized that he had lost his friend forever and began a funeral lament, wailing: “Koke is dead, we have no protector, woe to us!”

An empty bottle was found on the table; it could have contained laudanum or morphine. It seemed, writes Danielsson, that it had been empty for a long time. We will never know what really happened. Other sources mention several ampoules of morphine. This is how the version of possible suicide arose. In the notes of Dr. Potier, who arrived on the island after the artist’s death, but managed in time to save the official report on Gauguin’s death from the fire, we read: “Gauguin was indeed very ill: he had diseased heart(without a doubt, syphilitic cardioaortitis); V literally no one killed him, but it is quite possible that he was poisoned gradually. I am absolutely sure that after Gauguin’s death, Bishop Martin burned some of the remaining paintings.” Potier goes even further in his assumptions: “It is possible that about twenty large-format paintings of naked women, which were captured by the bishop’s envoy, were burned later; several drawings and sculptures also disappeared, the subjects of which the bishop considered blasphemous.”

In any case, even if Gauguin took too strong a dose of the drug, it was not because he decided to commit suicide, and not out of carelessness, but rather out of panic fear of the unbearable pain that had haunted him for months. And even if this dose accelerated the fatal outcome, it was not what killed Gauguin. The pastor shared the same opinion. In 1904, Victor Segalen, the ship's doctor from the Durance, who was then at the scene of the tragedy, in a letter to Monfred, denied rumors about Gauguin's suicide or his murder by his enemies: “I believe that his death occurred as a result of a ruptured aneurysm, and this is the opinion shared by my colleague, a doctor from another Pacific warship, who saw Gauguin three months before his death.” Perhaps this was an attempt to avoid mention of syphilitic aortitis.

So, having discovered Gauguin, Tioka rushed after the pastor to try to give the artist artificial respiration. But no matter how much Vernier was in a hurry, Bishop Martin, who heard about what had happened, beat him to it. He arrived, accompanied by two brothers from a nearby religious school, and announced that he intended to bury the deceased in the Catholic mission cemetery, since he had been baptized. In vain did the pastor persuade him to arrange a civil burial, taking into account the well-known views of the artist, the Church was not going to miss such a prize. The bishop filled out the papers, which were signed by witnesses, one of whom was Tioka. Finally, Martin could not resist making a bilious remark: “Everyone knows that he was married and had children, but the name of his wife is unknown.” Tioka was allowed to anoint Gauguin's body and decorate it with flowers, then the bishop's henchmen took his place. While cleaning at night, they destroyed (or took with them, who knows?) postcards purchased in Port Said, Japanese prints and, of course, paintings, drawings and some sculptures.

Subsequently, Jean Loise discovered in an official report, literally saved from the fire, “that two official letters notifying the artist’s death were sent on May 23, that is, only two weeks later, and even then not to France, but so far only to Tahiti.” Such slowness was not at all characteristic of Piquenot, who notified the governor that Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin “died, apparently, of heart disease.”

It seemed that the day after his death, May 9, Gauguin was buried secretly, in the absence of friends, in the mission cemetery, with a large white cross erected on his grave, strikingly different from what was depicted in the last paintings of the deceased. The natives' fear of punishment for their participation in the fate of a man whom the bishop did not stop scourging even after death did not dissipate. Martin wrote to his congregation Picpus: “Nothing outstanding, except sudden death sad famous person, a certain Gauguin, for Lately Did not happen. This famous artist is the enemy of God and everything that is good on earth.” These lines help to understand the nature of Gauguin's religious burial, which was undoubtedly equated by its organizers with a conjurer of evil spirits.

As for Piquenot, he hurried Gauguin’s creditors to show up, concerned that, according to information that had reached him [wasn’t it from Claverie?] “the liabilities far outweigh the assets, and several paintings by the late decadent artist have little chance of finding buyers.” As a result, such a pessimistic attitude of the manager will lead to a hasty sale of works that survived episcopal censorship.

On May 27, we began the inventory. Claverie retrained as an appraiser, responsible for the sale of household items at the auction scheduled for July 20. Fortunately for us, on August 10, the patrol boat Durance anchored off Hiva Oa. On board was the future writer - twenty-five-year-old ship's doctor Victor Segalen, who admired Tahiti and knew Gauguin. Having learned about the death of the artist, he rushed straight from the pier to the “House of Pleasures”. Here is what he wrote for the Mercure de France in June 1904: “The decoration of the house looked solemn and funerary, which corresponded to the agony experienced in it: majestic and sad, a little paradoxical, it set the right tone for the last act of this vagabond life, it clarified and revealed this life. It was Gauguin’s personality that was reflected in the surrounding interior and illuminated it […] Gauguin was a monster. In other words, he could not be classified into any moral, intellectual or social category, membership in which is quite enough to define most individuals […] So, Gauguin was a monster, and he was one consciously and deliberately.”

Segalen drove up to the house: “Opposite the small staircase that leads to a platform raised above the ground, in the shadow of a small naive house stands a clay sculpture, dried by the sun and worn out by the rains. It's worth stopping in front of it. This is an image of an idol […] generated by the prophetic dreams of the artist. It is unusual in its heterogeneity: the general appearance resembles the Buddha, but the strong mouth, close-set eyes and straight nose, barely widening towards the nostrils, are clearly of native origin - this is a Buddha who could have been born in the country of the Maori. Around him Gauguin placed the heroes of Polynesian myths in various hieratic poses.” It is obvious that all this is amazingly seen and carefully thought out by a person who has thought a lot about Maori civilization. Under the statue, Segalen discovered poetry written by Gauguin:

TE ATUA (god)

Yes, the gods died, and, as if dividing

Their fate is that the earth languishes and perishes.

In his half-day slumber and at night

She is fainted by terrible dreams.

With a sigh, lovely Eva

He looks at his barren womb...

(Translated by N. Ya. Rykova)

These poems, to which he alone drew attention, breathe the same muted, almost twilight light as the artist’s last canvases.

Then Segalen describes the carved entrance, two paintings at the back of the room, made “directly on the wooden panels of the walls. Against the bright blue background of one of them, a group of natives quietly wanders along the brown-ocher, almost red soil.” He writes about the workshop that it was “disorderly hung with Polynesian weapons.” He also notices “full of tragedy” the self-portrait “At Golgotha” and “another portrait, undated and unsigned, apparently later; on it, the inclined position of the head emphasizes the artist’s strong build and the imperious line of the nose.” We are talking about that “Self-Portrait”, where Gauguin, depicted in glasses, seems ready to forever confront the whole world. (It is now in the Museum of Art in Basel.) “The most interesting work in the studio is undoubtedly the most valuable,” says Segalen of the painting “Motherhood,” painted in 1899 and now adorning the Rockefeller collection. “And the last surprise,” adds Segalen, “was the canvas created by Gauguin in the last moments of his life in this country of warmth and light - this is a vision of the icy Breton winter, to which the last touches of the artist’s brush were given.” The deliberate similarity of the image on the “Self-Portrait” and on the canvas “At Golgotha” leaves no doubt that both of them were painted at approximately the same time, shortly before his death, when Gauguin tried to see in comparison the approach of impending old age and misfortune in his features. The fact that he placed “Motherhood” and “Breton Village in the Snow” side by side suggests that, recalling his works, he considered these two paintings very important, but not because of the plot, not because of the theme. Let us recall that “Motherhood” is one of the versions of the painting sent by Gauguin to Vollard and later purchased by the Russian collector Shchukin (now it is in the Hermitage).

Segalen then wondered: what could “these half-children” from the Marquesas Islands have given Gauguin? And he answered himself: “ Magnificent samples, which he dared to transform in his own way; melodious motifs in which amber-yellow warm notes broke through the blue and humid vibrations of the air; sparkling oily flesh on which golden sparks trembled in the sun; poses, finally, by which he schematically presented Maori physiology, which most likely was their true philosophy. Gauguin never looked for the mysterious Kanak soul under his beautiful shell - by painting the natives, he managed to become an animal painter.”

In this regard, Segalen wrote that “it is vain and stupid to talk about immorality in a country where the word shame is an English neologism, where this word and the feeling it defines hardly refer to sexual relations, where virginity is nothing more than a myth denoted by the Greek word , fidelity to a lover is an absurdity, selfless love is an absurdity, and a woman is just an exquisite animal. But, it must be admitted, the animal is civilized, since it intersperses love games with singing, interrupting it in order to list our French departments, including subprefectures.”

As for civilization, Segalen completely agreed with Gauguin, who predicted the “quick degeneration” of the inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands. “The opium made them look emaciated, the terrible fermented juices gradually destroyed their body with an unprecedented intoxication, and syphilis rewarded them with infertility.”

But let’s return to the “House of Pleasure” at that time, when it was not yet empty, until the things that the authorities of the Marquesas Islands considered valuable were sent to Papeete: paintings, drawings and books. The said authorities, led by the bishop, showed themselves to be too liberal in comparison with the so-called “experts” who examined the artist’s property before the auction, which was to take place on September 2, 1903. “The tax collector Vermeers,” wrote Le Pichon, “turned to the artist Le Moine with a request to help him prepare an inventory, and together they threw into a landfill (according to the expert, “in their proper place”) a huge number of drawings, sketches, crumpled pieces of paper, recorded thoughts, unfinished drafts and sculptural sketches, which testified, according to Le Moine, not to “brilliant thinking,” but to “greasy imagination.” The paintings, as one would expect, were sold for next to nothing.” The only one who benefited from this was Segalen, he spent all his salary on manuscripts and books, bought everything for sixteen francs wooden sculptures, which decorated the “House of Pleasure,” for four francs the artist’s palette and for eighty-five francs seven paintings. Among them were a self-portrait from the painting "At Calvary" and "Breton Village in the Snow", for which the appraiser asked seven francs, showing it upside down and giving it the unexpected name "Niagara Falls". The last “Self-Portrait” remained with Ki Dong, who fully deserved it for his unwavering loyalty to Gauguin. Lieutenant Cochin (the son of a politician and brother of a historian of the revolution) took with him the painting “Motherhood,” bought for one hundred and fifty francs (his entire salary), citing a higher price than ... Governor Petit, who offered one hundred and thirty-five francs. He seemed to have finally recognized the talent of the man whom he allowed him to pursue without even bothering to get to know him personally. In a letter to Monfred, who by that time had received a report from the Ministry of Colonies about the disappearance of several Gauguin manuscripts, Segalen reassured him about the book “Noah-Noah”. “Mr. Petit intended to leaf through this book, which the tax collector entrusted to him. But then the governor fell seriously ill and hastily left. The manuscript inadvertently ended up among his luggage, and the governor, who became aware of this and who is now almost dying, declared that upon his arrival in France he would immediately return the manuscript as it belonged.”

Meanwhile, as Perrucho writes, Piquenot managed to demand from Governor Petit that Sergeant Claverie be sent away from Atuona “for poor performance of administrative duties” and for the fact that, without his knowledge, he “supported the prosecution against Monsieur Gauguin.” The manager ordered an investigation, from which “it became clear that a number of facts pointed out by the deceased were confirmed.” Petit granted his subordinate's request. But soon another governor was appointed instead of Petit, who died in Australia, and, to the surprise and indignation of Piqueno, Sergeant Claverie was again installed in Atuon. Three weeks later he was given the rank of non-commissioned officer... It seems that, in addition to Piqueno and Petit, who allowed themselves to face the truth and finally figure out who Gauguin really was (and the second, perhaps, even experienced remorse), all other representatives of the colonial authorities and law and order understood absolutely nothing. Or rather, they didn’t want to understand. As a result, Piqueno was dissatisfied with the fact that he dared to be surprised by Claverie's return.

According to Loise, in the report saved from burning there is an entry dated August 1, that is, three months after Gauguin’s death, where next to the artist’s name it is written: “to receive forty-five thousand francs as taxes,” of which, as is known, twenty thousand seventy-five francs was a fine. Luaz further adds:

“The comment that follows is captivating in its ease: “All this must be claimed, and with today[emphasis added] the fight against the obstinate must be carried out. Mr. Deputy Special Agent [meaning the gendarme] will have something to add to his safe; especially since the cash I have does not allow me to send him money.” In this regard, I remember the words Gauguin once said to me: “A fine of one hundred francs for a native is the same as a thousand francs for any European or Chinese.”

According to Chasse's recollections, the retired Charpillet recalled with emotion the “master Paul Gauguin,” this “ outstanding person" and "the unfortunate great artist." “He was a man like I had never seen in my life,” he said. - Seer." A letter published in the catalog for the Gauguin exhibition in Paris in 1949 introduces us to a new Claverie, who ran a tobacco shop in the Hautes-Pyrenees and honored the artist's memory even more fervently. He "reverently showed customers a small display case containing wooden sculptures of the one whom he had once persecuted and who had now become his idol." As Solzhenitsyn says: “They love only the dead.”

Ursula Frances Marx-Vandenbroucke, wrote thesis at the Sorbonne, gained access to the archives of the French colonies, where she discovered two reports on the Marquesas Islands. In the first, some administrator notes that “the natives were primarily accustomed to fear missionaries and gendarmes, and the fear of some was reinforced by the fear of others.” In another we read that the congregation of Bishop Martin “was engaged solely in establishing its power in the Marquesas, acquiring earthly wealth with the help of religious propaganda under the pretext of education, the establishment of morality and the planting of French influence.” Gauguin's enemies were enemies of the natives and their culture. He died from a collision with them. Of course, he had a difficult character, but the gap between his views and the behavior of the colonial authorities was in any case insurmountable. And it is unknown whether it has been overcome even now, after decolonization.

On August 23, when Monfred learned from Piqueno's letter about Gauguin's death, the posthumous history of the artist began - the history of his work. Vollard was one of the first to realize how he could benefit from this: “If you happen to have any Gauguin works left for sale, I would be extremely grateful for your preference. And one more thing: I told you that according to my agreement with Gauguin, a payment of two hundred francs for each painting was established. Later, in one of my letters, I expressed my willingness to pay two hundred and fifty francs. But even more late letter, a copy of which I have preserved, I informed him that, taking into account the present state of my financial affairs, I was forced to adhere to our mutual agreement of two hundred francs. No one, I think, will be surprised that the mentioned letter was never found in Gauguin’s papers. After reflection, on October 8, Vollard wrote again to Monfred: “In any case, I hope you do not think that I announced this after the fact.”

At the same time, a lively correspondence began between Monfred and Mette. From now on she called Gauguin nothing more than “my poor Paul”, “this great artist” and “an extraordinary man”. She sent Monfred a power of attorney to sell the paintings. In fact, there was no need to sell off the Tahitian works to repay the debts, since the checks from Vollard and Faye amounted to an impressive amount - more than four thousand francs. It also included money from the sale of the House of Pleasures to Ben Varney. It remained uninhabited and eventually collapsed.

The first Autumn Salon opened on October 31. Its stars were former nabis - Sérusier and Maurice Denis. On the initiative of Charles Maurice, honors were also given to Paul Gauguin. The Salon featured five paintings, including Self-Portrait with the Yellow Christ, lent by Maurice Denis (he bought it from Madame Gloanec) and four studies. Four days later, Vollard exhibited fifty paintings and twenty-seven monotypes by Gauguin in his gallery. Matisse, who also participated in the Autumn Salon and back in 1899 bought one Tahitian painting from Vollard - “Young Man with a Flower” - probably could not miss this first retrospective exhibition, although his biographers usually do not mention this. And is it possible to imagine that Degas would not visit her? Of Gauguin's close associates, only two were absent - Cézanne, who did not leave Aix throughout 1903, and Pissarro, who died on November 12.

In any case, Gauguin's painting still made its way with difficulty, along roundabout paths. We know that the young Picasso, then living in Barcelona, ​​paid tribute to Gauguin by painting a nude very similar to his Tahitian women, which was pointedly signed by Paul Picasso. He knew about Gauguin from one of his most faithful friends in Paris, the Basque ceramist Paco Durrio, who all his life kept Gauguin’s paintings that belonged to him - “Portrait of Alina” and “Head of a Breton Woman.”

The re-evaluation of Gauguin's work began in the summer of 1905, when Matisse and Derain, working side by side in Collioure, painted several paintings that provoked a scandal in the Les Fauves, the Fauvist circle. Before this, Matisse met Maillol, who at one time learned a lot from Gauguin. Then he and Derain went to Monfred in Corneil-de-Conflans, where they became acquainted with many of Gauguin’s works written in Oceania. From this meeting with a man closely associated with Gauguin in the last years of his life, Matisse drew inspiration for his pastoral, which became the anthem of the Independents in 1906 and called “The Joy of Life”, as well as for some of the discoveries that were a revelation at his exhibition at Druet . His lithographs directly inherited Gauguin's method of monotypes, and his drawing as a whole became anti-classical.

There is enough research on Matisse, Derain and Picasso's discovery of black art to fill a library, but very little has been written about how they discovered Gauguin. This happened partly due to inaccuracies, most likely intentionally made by Flaminck, who could not bear the very idea of ​​recognizing Gauguin’s primacy in this matter and who ultimately concluded that black art generally appeared in modern painting only in 1905. However, thanks to the works presented at the exhibition “Primitivism in the Art of the 20th Century” by Jack D. Flem, it was established that this happened only by mid-1906, namely after the already mentioned visit of the artists to Daniel de Montfred. The main reason for this misconception is that Gauguin’s work was truly studied only in the 1970–1980s. Only then was his contribution to the development of primitivism appreciated. And it became clear that Matisse not only became acquainted with the works of Gauguin, he perceived his art to such an extent that it turned into the meaning of life for the artist.

It is easier to judge the degree of influence of Gauguin’s multifaceted creativity on the development of primitivism if you know that the discovery of black art did not occur with the appearance of finished works, as was the case with Japanese prints, but by giving a different status to attractions, all kinds of “cannibalistic fetishes” that were suddenly recognized works, albeit primitive, but still art. Gauguin's achievements played a decisive role in this. In development primitive art he highlighted two important points. First, he believed that its understanding would lead to a renewal of modern Western fine art, since primitivism existed as an effective and fruitful means of communication across time frames and civilizations. Secondly, it was precisely this property of primitive art, arising from its natural character, that called into question all existing theories of evolution. Art, by its nature, turned out to be very far from the achievements of technology and industry.

It was reverse side medals for the success of colonialism. Having taken the position of savior of the culture of enslaved peoples, colonialism itself became imbued with its richness and originality. Proof of this were the World Exhibitions of 1889 and 1900. The first thing that came to the minds of fans of this style was to inject a stream of fresh blood into the modern world with the help of primitive creativity. european art, exhausted by academic decadence. But very soon the most receptive, the most free creators, especially sculptors such as Rodin or Gauguin, realized that hitherto unknown arts opened up for them a new field of search, not only in the sphere of imagination and in methods of self-expression, but also in aesthetics in general. In “Before and Then,” Gauguin notes the “simplicity, majestic severity and slightly awkward, angular naivety” that distinguishes the art of the aborigines of the Marquesas Islands. This definition implies not just the revival of old art with the help of primitivism, but also opens the way to the idea of ​​updating outdated rules, makes accessible virgin artistic techniques, and allows us to get closer to the creativity of the future. Such aspirations not only corresponded to the vague hopes of that era, but also clothed them, thanks to the renewal of art, in flesh and blood. Therefore, despite the fact that Gauguin’s unique recordings were not yet known at that time, his role was important in itself, since his works existed.

And the more famous Gauguin’s work became, the wider the road to the overthrow of existing values ​​opened for those interested. In 1901, Gauguin wrote to Monfred about one of his works: “This engraving is interesting precisely because it returns us to primitive engraving. I am convinced that after some time my wood carving, so different from what others do, will be highly appreciated.” And is it possible to diminish his influence on subsequent generations now that it is known that both visitors to Monfred - Matisse and Derain - revolutionized the art of engraving. First Matisse in his lithographs, and a little later Derain in woodcuts, brilliantly executed for Apollinaire's first collection of poems, The Rotting Enchanter, which was published in 1909.

The artists' visit to Monfred had a great influence on their painting. While researching Gauguin's work, Jean Laud discovered that the artist owed some of his discoveries to “Tahitian tapa - drawings on ground bark, still practiced during his stay [on the island]. These tapas confirmed Gauguin's own research in the use of surfaces by applying isolated stylized forms to them, made with pure colors that did not create visual illusions. It was they who helped him understand that color itself is capable of arranging shapes in space and, with its saturation, imparting depth to the image, as well as removing or bringing individual objects closer.”

To the “expansion of the imaginary horizon,” as Jean Laud so aptly put it, Gauguin was able to add new possibilities to painting, making color and plastic rhythms express meaning and symbolism instead of acting as a “literary application.” To the artists of the new generation, his primitivism seemed comprehensive, since its development proceeded from visual means to meaning. Taking into account all these factors, it is easy to explain the scope of the large retrospective exhibition held at the Salon in the fall of 1906, where all the artist’s major achievements were demonstrated. It didn’t even hurt that due to poor demand, an insufficient number of works were exhibited. And it is clear that no amount of Monfred’s zeal or Vollard’s interest could have provided the exhibition with the success it had, even despite its unfavorable territorial location.

In 1906, particularly noticeable changes took place in the work of young artists. Matisse and Derain created their first “negro works”. Deren visited British museum and discovered Vlaminka. At the same time he met Picasso, and under the influence of this meeting he largely changed his style and his artistic preferences. Picasso probably visited the earlier exhibition at the Louvre of sculptures from the era that preceded the Roman conquests found in Osuna and Cerro de Los Santos. These sculptures were supposed to convey to him an echo of the primitive art of his native country. But he began to search for archaic forms in his work only in the spring of 1906, while in Gonzola in Upper Catalonia.

Matisse paid tribute to primitivism in its purest form in his painting “The Joy of Life” - a real masterpiece that inherited the dreams and aspirations of Gauguin. What is most interesting is that this work owes its appearance to the same collection of paintings with images of Oceanian nude women, which were kept in Monfred’s house. As Pierre Schneider convincingly argues, in this work Matisse managed to surpass Gauguin’s “And the Gold of Their Bodies” both in the heady colors of the Fauvist, and in the fact that his huge canvas “embodies a complete reproduction of the myth of the Golden Age, the sacred story of the origins of happiness, since there is no happiness, as soon as at the beginning, and there is no beginning that is not happiness.” It would be absurd to reduce Matisse or Picasso to Gauguin, but in order to understand what was happening in 1906, it is necessary to remember that it was Gauguin who played the role of a springboard for the most majestic and revealing creation of the avant-garde of that time, which was the painting “The Joy of Life”. (The history of modern art assigns him the same role in the fate of two other great works, although they did not receive similar public recognition - we are talking about Derain’s “Golden Age” and Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”)

Considering Gauguin’s similar role in the development of modern painting, it becomes clear why the 1906 retrospective exhibition not only met the expectations of innovators, but was also perceived as an event of the first magnitude, although the history of art, until very recently, belittled its role and practically eliminated memories of it.

If I am not mistaken, the report of Paul Jamot, published in the Gazette de Beaux-Arts for December 1906, has not been included in any current research as a historical fact. However, Jamot, at forty-three years old, already held the honorary position of curator of the Louvre Museum and gained great authority in the polemics about Greek art that he waged with Furtwängler. He wrote: “From Cézanne [who had just died and to whom Jamot paid tribute] to Gauguin, there is a certain continuity that exists between the one who begins and the one who carries out his plans. Finally, the transformation of technical experiments into a decorative style took place.” Let us note that Matisse must have read this article, in which Jamot counterfeited him by writing: “... the puzzling and changeable Henri Matisse, possessing an undoubted gift as a colorist, continues, using supposedly new means, to show the most merciless indifference to the material provided by reality.” (We were talking about five works by Matisse, including Marguerite Reading and Red Carpets.)

“From these indicative documents,” continued Jamot, “we can trace those fifteen to eighteen years of work, during which Gauguin moved, constantly improving, towards his true destiny, to highest degree stylization and to the highest triumph of color." And here is the general conclusion: “In this short period, he managed to create his own art, refined and primitive at the same time, and there is nothing feigned in either these refinements or primitiveness. This is the result of a spontaneous combination of Peruvian and French atavisms. From the very beginning, he felt that this ancient land [Tahiti], which they are trying to deprive of its past, its nature, the plasticity of its inhabitants, would obediently submit to his dream. He could immediately convey in his works the bestial, untamed dignity, nobility and grace inherent in this primitive race. To do this, he depicted her surrounded by scenery in which nature, reduced to its basic components, glows with wide spots that do not merge with each other, combining in the most unexpected way, like the colors of majestic stained glass windows.” If we add to this the sculptures mentioned by Jamot, “especially small things in which the same features were manifested,” then even with the most cursory glance at Gauguin’s creative path, it becomes clear: in his work, he rightfully deserves the title of master. The problem is that, as in the case of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Derain and Braque, French collectors were less receptive than, for example, Russians such as Shchukin or Morozov. As a result, recognition in his homeland came to Gauguin much later than in other countries.

But here’s what’s striking about Zhamo’s notes. “Is it necessary,” he writes, “to respond to the common remark: “All these yellow women are ugly and do not interest us”? If we did not know how insensitive most people are to anything unusual, this remark might be surprising, because it often comes from those who easily perceive beauty in an image Arab women or Bedouins." And then suddenly you begin to understand that Gauguin’s Tahitians are as sharply different from the stereotype of stereotyped exotic women as the women of Courbet and Manet are different from the empty dolls of Cabanel and Bouguereau.

Further, Zhamo describes in detail, defending “The Spirit of the Dead is Awakening” and “Nave Nave Makhana” from attacks, clarifying: “Without exaggeration, four canvases from the Faye collection can be called masterpieces. “Woman with a Fan (Te aria wahine)” is depicted naked, lying on a green slope, next to her are several purple fruits […]. She exhibits a striking type of her race, and her posture is characteristic of the hot climate in which she lives. Thanks to the absolute harmony between the lines of the body and the landscape, beautiful texture and color, unprecedented heights have been achieved in the art of synthesis and the nobility of style. This brown Aphrodite inevitably brings to mind Baudelaire's lines about the beautiful dark stranger:

I love you like the night sky...

(Translated by V. Shor)

When I close my eyes on a sultry summer evening

I inhale the scent of your naked breasts,

I see the shores of the seas before me,

Flooded with the brightness of monotonous light...

(Translated by V. Bryusov)

From that autumn of 1906, the story of Gauguin's fame began, when he was finally able to settle in the Pantheon of modern painting along with Cezanne and Van Gogh. However, the speed of his posthumous rise should not be misleading. Let Gauguin forever remain the guiding star of Matisse, who in adulthood will even travel to Tahiti and become a like-minded person of Picasso in his search for freedom in painting and sculpture, but for a long time, throughout the whole century, all his daring, all his discoveries will excite the public, dividing society into its opponents and supporters. Gauguin's work will always be reduced to the exotic, to Bernard's cloisonnism or to his marginality. And only subsequent generations will be able to appreciate his genius, as Zhamo did. Apollinaire attended a small exhibition at Vollard in 1910. According to him, he came to admire “the liturgy of painting, where colors carry a symbolic meaning that enhances their decorative appeal. The most religious of modern artists, Gauguin was the first to contrast his works with impressionism, which, unfortunately, completely reigned in art at that time […]. It is in the Louvre that these harmonious works should be exhibited, [in which] Paul Gauguin returned to the deep past of humanity in order to find the once lost divine purity of art.”

With these words, Apollinaire brings us very close to the traditions of primitivism. He, in turn, was introduced to them by Kahnweiler, who published the first collection of the poet’s poems. It is noteworthy that he ordered illustrations for “The Rotting Sorcerer” from Derain, and he used woodcuts for this, inspired by the works of Gauguin.

It can be said without exaggeration that it was from this moment that Gauguin gained well-deserved recognition outside of France. And if, as a result of the chaos caused by the Bolshevik revolution, the Gauguin paintings acquired by Shchukin and Morozov did not cause the proper reaction - after all, some of them are still practically unknown - then the German expressionists cheerfully took up the baton. Just at the time when the Fauves appeared in France, Kirchner and his like-minded people from Brücke, having completely independently studied one of the best galleries in the world, namely Dresden, invented their own primitivism. Their great interest in woodcuts brought them closer to the art of Gauguin. As a result, as one would expect, it was Gauguin, with all his work and legendary life, that became for them the reference material for which they constantly traveled to France for a more in-depth study. Gauguin exhibitions were organized in 1905 in Weimar, in 1906 in Berlin and in 1910 in Munich. Both Nolde and Pechstein explicitly stated that they were his supporters, and in 1913–1914 Nolde made a long trip to Oceania. As Goldwater wrote in 1938: “Whereas the nineteenth century (and especially, as we have seen, Gauguin) tried to grasp religious truth by freeing itself from historical or geographical accretions, the twentieth century, for the same purpose, preferred to tear away the emotional veils from the individual.” But Gauguin resolutely defended emotionality. With the help of his primitivism, indirectly, through Dada and expressionism, he nevertheless approached surrealism. This manner of his gave rise to new directions and trends in painting, thanks to which Gauguin is still present in modern art.

In France, this chain reaction did not take place until 1949, when they celebrated the centenary of Gauguin's birth.

It was then that the artist was finally recognized as the indisputable founder of modern art. And then Rene Hugh wrote about him that “he became the first who realized the need for a decisive change in the world so that modern art could be born, became the one who managed to abandon the gloomy and ossified Latin tradition to regain primitive powers in the tales of barbarians and the idols of savages; he became the first who, with a clear head, dared to change the surrounding reality or even completely abandon it, and at the same time rationalism […] He was able to understand: what affects the feelings - line, color, image - also affects the soul. And this understanding suddenly opened the way to quests that, once systematized, were to lead to abstract art, and through it to completely new surrealism and expressionism.”

In 1938, in Lucerne, Gauguin was symbolically present at the sale of works that Hitler's authorities considered to be decadent art. At the same time, by order of Stalin, the magnificent collections of Shchukin and Morozov were banned from display. This posthumous persecution totalitarian regimes might have pleased the inveterate supporter of anarchism, which the artist always remained at heart.

In 1968, Françoise Cachin, adding to the judgments of her predecessors about Gauguin, expressed the idea that he became “the first artist who really perceived painting at the level of absolute search and experienced it as if it were a personal drama.” And yet, it was only in 1984, when the exhibition “Primitivism in the Art of the 20th Century” was held at the Museum of Art in New York, which led to a revaluation of all modern art, that Gauguin began to be called the “father of modern primitivism.” If we take into account the exceptional intensity, richness and volume of creative research that Gauguin managed to bring to the end, then such long haul to the perception of his art seems completely natural. And only now Gauguin is truly with us.

Death, and only I testify: after watching “Taurus” - Sokurov’s film about Lenin - I heard very different opinions in the House of Cinema, mostly negative, and I heard them from intelligent, quite respectable people. However, not a single negative review of the picture - according to