Writings of a Savage PB

By Paul Gauguin

Book Overview

The life of Paul Gauguin (1848--1903), who abandoned his wife, five children, and a successful career as a stockbroker to paint in poverty in exotic Tahiti, is one of the legendary tales of the art world. Today he is recognized as a highly influential founding father of modern art, who emphasized the use of flat planes and bright, nonnaturalistic color in conjunction with symbolic or primitive subjects. Familiarity with Gauguin the writer is essential for a complete understanding of the artist. The Writings of a Savage collects the very best of his letters, articles, books, and journals, many of which are unavailable elsewhere. In brilliantly lucid discussions of life and art Gauguin paints a triumphant self-portrait of a volcanic artist and the tormented man within.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306807009
• ISBN13: 9780306807008
• Release Date: March 1996
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Refinement of artistic work through multiple castings.

The line that has always remained fixed in my mind was Gauguin's comment on the refinement of a work. I think on a very basic level, to simply make a primary statement and move on has a very satisfying feeling to it. Miles Davis, among others, was fond of one takes because there is a spirit that is captured in that take, often lost on recurrent ones because of increased expectations, abstraction of an "ideal", and trying to recall of the "good stuff" while dismissing the "bad". Gauguin's work and life capture this idea quite well, and he voices a call-to-arms by bringing to light this notion of the non-refinement of the work. In Japanese ink calligraphy, the calligrapher has but one chance to draw to the rice paper; the live jazz improvisation must consider ALL of the performance to be part of the statement. It is a further comment against the hyperabstraction of Western artistic ideals, psuedo-ideals, that canonize relative cultural ideals and discard that which is considered non-beatiful or non-meaningful.