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Not so Seattle Art Museum, which just opened a touring Gauguin show from the Art Centre Basel. Here for its only U.S. stop, the exhibit juxtaposes 60 paintings, prints and sculptures by Gauguin with the same number of Polynesian art works – carvings, decorative weapons and the like. Through the selection and careful historical layout, “Gauguin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise” manages to sidestep the criticisms and look plainly at the intersection of a sophisticated but decaying culture and the man who fell in love with his own idea of it.
Through 11 galleries (well, 10 plus an entry) SAM sets out the show with style. Pick up a printed gallery guide as you go in because rooms are large, the show is popular and wall texts are not always where you want them to be. The galleries take you through Gauguin’s artistic life – from his defection from stockbroker to artist at the age of 34. See his fascination with all things Polynesian, his experiences with Vincent van Gogh and at the Paris World’s Fair in 1889, and his trips to Tahiti, New Zealand and the Marquesas Islands. Curators Suzanne Greub ( from Basel) and Chiyo Ishikawa and Pam McClusky (from SAM) bring to vivid life Gauguin’s artistic and personal journey, contrasting what he idealized about the South Pacific with what was really there with astonishing sensitivity.
And sensitivity is definitely needed. When Gauguin began devoting himself to art around 1882, his style was unimaginative. “Female Nude with Sunflowers” of 1889 has van Gogh-yellow flowers, his other landscapes of the time could be anyone’s, with picturesque hay-ricks and blurry hills. But by 1889, he’d seen the Polynesian exhibits at the Paris World’s Fair, and his impressionistic French scenes were peopled with starkly chiseled figures in stylized poses. An astonishing wood carving, “Reclining Woman with Fan,” offers a hint – in its stage-like layers of relief – of the primitive lines of leaf and face Gauguin would later own.
By far the greatest gift of this show are the 60 Polynesian works on view. In the World’s Fair gallery alone, you are shown exactly the kind of exotic art Gauguin repurposed his life around: the “Cadaverous Male Figure,” just 18 inches high but redolent of alert power in its chunky feet and hunched ribs; the wide-eyed stone tikis with squat, fat bodies and otherworldly gaze; or the heat-sculpted turtle-shell head ornaments with intricate double-figure patterns carved and woven together.
From there, the exhibit moves into that part of Gauguin most know best: the lush landscapes and moody, beautiful women in ugly missionary dresses he painted when he moved to Tahiti in 1891. It’s impossible not to see the stern, dignified features of the Polynesian carvings in these women’s faces, their eyes – like those of the tikis – evading our gaze. Gauguin moves from a French yellow-green to blue-greens and pastels with Dr. Seuss-like interpretations of tropical vegetation. We’re taken into more art from Polynesia’s “voluptuous” period before the devastating effects of French colonialism, reminding us of just how far this seafaring culture had reached before European explorers.
Gauguin begins using saturated pinks, teals and golds, mixing Tahitian people with European artistic conceits, such as an island king beheaded onto a platter like John the Baptist. It’s clear the artist was, like many colonials, imposing his own notions onto what he found in Tahiti. Yet he captures the curving beauty of both people and place: His companion Tehemana is given the exotic sheen and mysterious background seen in the Tahitian wood-carved double figures in the same gallery.
But the exhibit doesn’t stop there. We see Gauguin’s woodcuts, the perfect medium for his bold line and primitivist composition, and a facsimile of his scrapbook “Noa Noa.” We see his masterpiece sculpture “Oviri,” a square terracotta vase with Tahitian gods communing like Rubens characters. There’s an entire gallery displaying the tattooed complexity of the Maori carvings Gauguin saw in 1895, and his wickedly clever wood sculpture “Pre Paillard,” mocking the local bishop with devil’s horns, flame-like hair and a face like an Easter Island statue – Gauguin finally synthesizing both cultures and his satirical eye.
Ultimately, there are the works of Gauguin’s final, drug-addled years in the Marquesas Islands. The works feature refined brushwork, sunset colors and tranquil scenes.
If “Gauguin and Polynesia” makes a statement, it’s that rather than reducing an artist to a political and behavioral caricature, it’s better to broaden our view, taking in his surroundings and their own art as a silent but equal partner. Gauguin might have been trouble in paradise, but he’s only one half of this story.
Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568, rosemary.ponnekanti@thenewstribune.com, blog.thenewstribune.com/arts ‘Gauguin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise’
Where: Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., Seattle
When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursday-Friday through April 29
Events: Remix 7:30 p.m. Feb. 24; First Friday lectures 11 a.m. March 2 and April 6; curator talk 7 p.m. March 8; community day 10 a.m.-3 p.m. March 10; curator talk 7 p.m. March 29; Tahiti films 7:30 p.m. March 30, April 20 and 27; teen night out 7-10 p.m. April 13
Admission: $23/$20/$18/free for ages 12 and younger; first Thursdays $12/$9/$8/free for ages 12 and younger
Information: seattleartmuseum.org
Also: Print Go Gauguin coupon online and find local retail and restaurant deals
