The Gauguin Exhibit



Yesterday, my wife and I went to the Paul Gauguin exhibit at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. Now I’m no art expert by any stretch but when you have a chance to see works of art by one of the all-time greats – you’d be foolish not to (even if you’re just a regular guy like me).

I knew very little about Gauguin. To me he was the guy who went to Tahiti to paint naked women. What I did know was colored by the book The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham. The book was a thinly veiled fictionalization of the life of Gauguin that was written in 1919 (16 years after Gauguin’s death). In the book, the main character – Charles Strickland (i.e. Gauguin) is English instead of French but the gist of Gauguin’s life is intact.

Neither my wife nor I opted for the audio headsets. To me the audio headset would be telling me what I should feel about a picture instead of just letting the reaction to the work be natural and real. Besides – almost all the information you needed about a picture was contained on the plaques beside each work.

Boston is the only US stop for the Gauguin exhibit and when you read the plaques to see where the paintings are from – you understand the reason why. It seemed that at least 3/5ths of the paintings were from the Boston MFA or from Harvard’s Fogg Museum (there was also one painting from the Worcester Art Museum – yeah Worcester!).

One thing that I read on one of the early plaques bothered me for most of the exhibit. It was noted that Gauguin often painted a fox into his pictures and that the fox symbolized perversity. OK – I’m all for symbolism in art but the problem I had is the fact that the fox was present in the early works and then he reappeared in some later works but not in the middle (or so it seemed). What really bothered me was the fact that a dog often appeared in many of Gaugin’s paintings from his second trip to Tahiti. What did the dog symbolize? Was it the same as a fox? What was the deal with the dog? I kinda wish I never even read that bit about the fox.



Gauguin had his own preconceptions about Tahiti and I guess when he first got there he was a bit disappointed because it wasn’t the paradise he had built it up to be in his mind. His preconceptions also seem to come out in his work. For some reason Buddhist themes seem to permeate his work as well as ancient Greek influences. These influences exist side by side with native Tahitian beliefs and they just seemed a bit out of place to me.

After spending two years in Tahiti – Gauguin returned to Europe to try and sell his artwork. Sales were pretty poor and Gauguin was disappointed. He basically went back to Tahiti pretty bitter about not being able to make his coin (or so it would seem). Gauguin spent his last six years on Tahiti and later on the Marquesas Islands

Gauguin’s work does have its own look and feel to it. I was surprised that there wasn’t much ocean or beach to his work. In fact many of the paintings are depicted at night. The most striking thing to me was his use of the color blue (doesn’t that sound artsy?).

The masterpiece of the exhibit was the painting Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Seeing this piece of art is something I’ll never forget and worth the price of admission just by itself.

I must admit that any time I use the word “masterpiece” I always think of my friend Bill Silk. The word is a bit of a pet peeve with Bill because people always misuse it. In any collection – by definition – there can only be one masterpiece. People often speak of multiple masterpieces and that’s just wrong. I feel better for venting on this piece of grammar.

It was also surprising to me to see that Gauguin was also a friend of Van Gogh and Degas. I tried to think if an equivalent of this sort of friendship existed today and the only thing I could think of is Hollywood friendships where maybe a superstar had a friend who he knew was a great actor so they put them into small parts in their movie until the actor can hit it big on his own. Degas bought some of Gauguin’s art just to make sure Gauguin still had some cash.

The exhibit will be at the MFA until June 20th.