(Picture A - “When Will you Marry” By Paul Gauguin)
Looking at “When Will you Marry” at face value, we see two beautiful young Pacific Island women sat on a scorching day. The sunshine practically rolls off the canvas – everything is cast in a warm, saturated orange glow, the sun illuminating a lush tropical landscape. The women in the painting boldly hold the viewer’s gaze. The woman slouched barefoot in the foreground wears a white flower in her hair, and loose tribal clothes. Her companion sits behind her, straight and proud, her hair carefully brushed behind her ears and wears a collared western dress that covers up her limbs in the heat. The colours are flat but intense, there are areas where the yellow underpainting is visible through the broad brush strokes and thin blocks of paint.
As it happens, when this painting was sold in 2015 to Qatari Royality, it broke records as the most expensive artwork ever sold, at over £300 million. (1) So, what makes this painting so special? To understand Gaugin’s impact, we should first look at the artist’s intent within the context that he lived in. Tahiti is the largest island in French Polynesia, annexed by France from 1880. It was during this time that Gaugin spend the last decade of his life there, treating French Polynesia as a fetishized ideal of a simple paradise (2), in contrast to urbanized Paris where he had spent most of his life and career as an impressionist painter. Pissarro, one of the greats of impressionism whom Gauguin had previously trained under (3), publicly said of Gauguin’s Polynesian work; “Always poaching on someone’s ground; now he is pillaging the savages of Oceania.” (4)
Looking at “When Will you Marry” at face value, we see two beautiful young Pacific Island women sat on a scorching day. The sunshine practically rolls off the canvas – everything is cast in a warm, saturated orange glow, the sun illuminating a lush tropical landscape. The women in the painting boldly hold the viewer’s gaze. The woman slouched barefoot in the foreground wears a white flower in her hair, and loose tribal clothes. Her companion sits behind her, straight and proud, her hair carefully brushed behind her ears and wears a collared western dress that covers up her limbs in the heat. The colours are flat but intense, there are areas where the yellow underpainting is visible through the broad brush strokes and thin blocks of paint.
As it happens, when this painting was sold in 2015 to Qatari Royality, it broke records as the most expensive artwork ever sold, at over £300 million. (1) So, what makes this painting so special? To understand Gaugin’s impact, we should first look at the artist’s intent within the context that he lived in. Tahiti is the largest island in French Polynesia, annexed by France from 1880. It was during this time that Gaugin spend the last decade of his life there, treating French Polynesia as a fetishized ideal of a simple paradise (2), in contrast to urbanized Paris where he had spent most of his life and career as an impressionist painter. Pissarro, one of the greats of impressionism whom Gauguin had previously trained under (3), publicly said of Gauguin’s Polynesian work; “Always poaching on someone’s ground; now he is pillaging the savages of Oceania.” (4)
(Picture B - example of the artist’s earlier impressionist work,” Garden in Vaugirard;” depicting the family he would soon abandon)
Paul Gauguin- Understanding Modern Art
Paul Gauguin- Understanding Modern Art
(Video 1 – an excellent concise look at the impact of Gauguin’s work within modernism)
While in Polynesia Gauguin found remarkable success selling his depictions of an idealized, sexually liberated life. He took two different 13-year-old brides and at one-point locals called his home a “house of pleasure” (5) which gives an idea of his lifestyle. Gauguin himself was of Peruvian descent from his mother’s side, and “took much pride in his mixed heritage, what he referred to as “Inca blood,” and made many attempts to find or develop this savagery” (6). This mindset of ‘the noble savage’ clearly played into his naïve romanticization of the land he helped mystify and fetishize to a western audience.
“The ways we see black and brown bodies from the Pacific are shot through his sense of desire. But how do you change the narrative? How do you change the way of looking?” - Kehinde Wiley (7).
Coming back around to “When will you marry” with this understanding, we can see the artist painting a contrast of the two girls, symbolizing the freedom of island life juxtaposing the rigidity of western ideals. We see him embracing symbolism, but we can also see the unmarried young woman as the object of his desire, exoticized and sexualized. While Gauguin’s legacy lives on today as one of the greats and the founder of the symbolist movement, we should question the cost of that, and the way similar colonial thinking has impacted deep into our cultural canon.
While in Polynesia Gauguin found remarkable success selling his depictions of an idealized, sexually liberated life. He took two different 13-year-old brides and at one-point locals called his home a “house of pleasure” (5) which gives an idea of his lifestyle. Gauguin himself was of Peruvian descent from his mother’s side, and “took much pride in his mixed heritage, what he referred to as “Inca blood,” and made many attempts to find or develop this savagery” (6). This mindset of ‘the noble savage’ clearly played into his naïve romanticization of the land he helped mystify and fetishize to a western audience.
“The ways we see black and brown bodies from the Pacific are shot through his sense of desire. But how do you change the narrative? How do you change the way of looking?” - Kehinde Wiley (7).
Coming back around to “When will you marry” with this understanding, we can see the artist painting a contrast of the two girls, symbolizing the freedom of island life juxtaposing the rigidity of western ideals. We see him embracing symbolism, but we can also see the unmarried young woman as the object of his desire, exoticized and sexualized. While Gauguin’s legacy lives on today as one of the greats and the founder of the symbolist movement, we should question the cost of that, and the way similar colonial thinking has impacted deep into our cultural canon.
(Video 2 – a podcast on art history episode “Rethinking Gauguin)
1) https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/ten-works-by-gauguin-you-should-know/
2) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/07/arts.highereducation
3) https://www.nga.gov/features/slideshows/paul-gauguin.html
4) https://www.artforum.com/print/201007/paul-gauguin-26134#:~:text=Camille%20Pissarro%20was%20the%20first,pillaging%20the%20savages%20of%20Oceania.%E2%80%9D
5) https://www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/11/16946/gauguin-portraits-from-the-house-of-pleasure
6) https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1127&context=stu_hon_theses
7) https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/paul-gauguin-national-gallery-me-too-art-harassment-assault-a9216801.html
8) Images from Tahiti https://primo.getty.edu/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=GRI&context=L&lang=en_US&docid=GETTY_ROSETTAIE4449861
1) https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/ten-works-by-gauguin-you-should-know/
2) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/07/arts.highereducation
3) https://www.nga.gov/features/slideshows/paul-gauguin.html
4) https://www.artforum.com/print/201007/paul-gauguin-26134#:~:text=Camille%20Pissarro%20was%20the%20first,pillaging%20the%20savages%20of%20Oceania.%E2%80%9D
5) https://www.thetablet.co.uk/arts/11/16946/gauguin-portraits-from-the-house-of-pleasure
6) https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1127&context=stu_hon_theses
7) https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/paul-gauguin-national-gallery-me-too-art-harassment-assault-a9216801.html
8) Images from Tahiti https://primo.getty.edu/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=GRI&context=L&lang=en_US&docid=GETTY_ROSETTAIE4449861