Gauguin post impressionism CLIL ART

1. Post – impressionism
PAUL
GAUGUIN

2. Reaction against impressionism
• Early 1880s. G. participated in impressionist exhibitions
in Paris
• By 1885 disillusionment with impressionism
and conventional life in Paris
• 1885 Turning point : G. leaves Paris and his
family, pursuing a full-time painting career
• G. fled to Brittany – Pont Aven influenced by
Pont-Aven school (chloisonnism + symbolism)
• 1888 G. spent two years with Van Gogh in Arles
• 1891: he sailed for Tahiti (Pacific Ocean)
escape from industrialized European world

3. OVERCOMING THE IMPRESSIONIST EXPERIENCE
IMPRESSIONISM
 abolished the contour
line
 painted with light and fast
brushstrokes
 abolished spatial depth
 painted en-plain air
 Natural colors and
interested in light effects
 Caught the immediacy of
perception in the real
world
GAUGUIN
 recovers a vigorous contour
line (from Pont Aven period +
cloisonnism)
 prefers wide and solid
patches of flat color (from
Japanese art)
 Replaces with temporal depth
 Works more from memory and
internal images
(reelaboration)
 Anti-naturalistic colors: vivid
to express emotions rather
than natural hue
 Conscience of reality in order
to stimulate and activate
imagination

4. Pont Aven: forging a new style
Meeting with Emile Bernard and rural communities in Brittany
development of SYNTHETISM
- The artist’s aim is to “synthetize” his feelings and elements in
the painting
- Simplification of shapes
- Amplification of color increasing emotional and
expressive power
- No spatial depth but TIME DEPTH: coexistence of present
+past+future
- The objective percepted element fixes in the mind and
stimulates imagination
- The result seen as symbol of the artist’s thoughts and
feelings SYMBOLISM

5. SOURCES OF INSPIRATION
• Breton folk-art
- Fascination for less industrially developed places
- Primitivist style + naive simplicity
• Cloisonnism
- Forms are simplified , areas of flat – unnatural colors are
separated by heavy outlines reminiscent of medieval stained
glass or cloisonne enamels
• Japanese prints
- No classical perspectives, mystic symbolism ,
vigour of flat colors

6. Vision after the sermon (Jacob wrestling with the Angel)
1888, 73x92 oil on canvas, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
GAUGUIN’S SYNTHETISM
Group of Breton women wearing
folk clothes , coming out of church
They are praying in
front of the
collective vision
TREE TRUNK:
it divides the
scene obliquely
division
between real
scene
+ imaginary
vision
REAL SCENE AND PEOPLE
IMAGINARY
VISION
Jacob wrestling
the angel

7. SYNTHETISM
COEXISTENCE OF
REAL SCENE + VISION PRODUCED BY IMAGINATION
Women coming out
of the church
and praying
Collective vision based
on the sermon just
heard at church
TEMPORAL DEPTH
It shows simultaneously the PRESENT and the PAST (the
sermon heard) which compenetrates the present and
stimulates collective imagination that starts flying beyond the
present.
Impact /contact with reality activates the flight of imagination

8. Vision after the sermon (Jacob wrestling with the Angel)
1888
GROUND: fire
red
unnatural color
Symbolical +
expressionist:
represents
passion and
aggressivenessContour line:
thick and
expressionist
reminds
cloisonné
stained glass
Flat colors
Oblique
tree
wide
layers of
color
From
Japa
nese
art
Anticipation of
FAUVISM

9. La Orana Maria
1891-92 oil on canvas, 113X88 , New York the MET
“An angel with yellow wings
points out Mary and Jesus, both
Tahitians, to two Tahitian
women, nudes wrapped
in pareus, a sort of cotton cloth
printed with flowers that can be
draped as one likes from the
waist” (letter to Daniel de Monfreid,
March 11, 1892).
Unconvential use of Polynesian
iconography mingled with
Christian themes and symbols

10. La Orana Maria 1891-92 oil on canvas, 113X88 , New York the MET
Simultaneous
contrast : use of
complementary
colors (yellow-
violet)
Tropical and
exotic Nature:
similar to an Eden
Symbol of a
pureness and
lushness lost in
the Western world
Can be compared to a
still life
genre typical of Western
tradition translated into
a different art
Mary: beautiful
Tahitian girl,
wearing red
printed sarong.
Both Mary and
Christ child
have halos
Two young girls
– half naked-
holding hands
in prayer
Angel with colorful
wings: intercessor

11. La Orana Maria : dream of a spiritual communion
with the primitive
Christian subject (Madonna with Christ child+
Annunciation) typical of Western tradition
Transformed into a tropical dream
No negation but translation into a different art
Octave Mirbeau : “diquieting and racy mixture of
barbaric splendour, Catholic liturgy, Hindu reverie,
Gothic imagery”