http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/charles-saatchis-great-masterpieces-sackcloth-syphilis-birth/
Detail of Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? by Paul Gauguin Credit: Hulton Fine Art Collection/Getty
Gauguin was disappointed on arriving in Tahiti, expecting an untouched, primal paradise. Instead, he found that a hundred years of Western influence had somewhat tarnished his idealised expectation of the island.
Until his thirties he had worked as a broker at the Paris Stock Exchange, having taken up painting simply as a hobby about 10 years earlier. Once in Tahiti, his paintings allowed him to create his fantasised version of the island, and one designed to intrigue Parisians.
“He’s not a seer, he’s a schemer,” Gauguin’s early mentor Pissarro said bitterly, on hearing of the warm response to the Tahitian pictures. He argued that Gauguin hadn’t lost his stockbroker’s instinct or lust for capitalist gain, knowing that his titillating visions of an exotic idyll would arouse and inspire the French art world.
Another of Gauguin’s jealous rivals referred to him as a “syphilitic paedophile” – he had several wives in Tahiti, whom he had married when they were just 13 or 14. A highly sexual man, he had probably been drawn to Tahiti not only by a yearning for a calmer, more primitive way of life, but also by the women, who were rumoured to be much freer with their affections than their prudish Western counterparts. His paintings certainly often portrayed the native women living their lives in hedonistic relaxation, sharing the pleasures of singing and lovemaking.
His most famous works feature the young beauties of the island, who are painted as gentle and unerotic – but in reality they were used as the artist’s sex slaves.
Until his thirties he had worked as a broker at the Paris Stock Exchange, having taken up painting simply as a hobby about 10 years earlier. Once in Tahiti, his paintings allowed him to create his fantasised version of the island, and one designed to intrigue Parisians.
“He’s not a seer, he’s a schemer,” Gauguin’s early mentor Pissarro said bitterly, on hearing of the warm response to the Tahitian pictures. He argued that Gauguin hadn’t lost his stockbroker’s instinct or lust for capitalist gain, knowing that his titillating visions of an exotic idyll would arouse and inspire the French art world.
Another of Gauguin’s jealous rivals referred to him as a “syphilitic paedophile” – he had several wives in Tahiti, whom he had married when they were just 13 or 14. A highly sexual man, he had probably been drawn to Tahiti not only by a yearning for a calmer, more primitive way of life, but also by the women, who were rumoured to be much freer with their affections than their prudish Western counterparts. His paintings certainly often portrayed the native women living their lives in hedonistic relaxation, sharing the pleasures of singing and lovemaking.
His most famous works feature the young beauties of the island, who are painted as gentle and unerotic – but in reality they were used as the artist’s sex slaves.
Gauguin's painting L'Apparition sold to a private collector for £7.6 million in 2003 Credit: Brian Smith/Sotheby's
Some convey an impenetrable sadness; however, in letters home he boasted that Tahitian maidens delightedly swarmed into his bed. Unforgivably, Gauguin infected his young wives and many other local girls with syphilis.
After years of growing miserable and homesick, and with news of his closest daughter’s death from pneumonia, the artist decided to make one final painting, the most towering of his career.
He wrote that he was planning to take his own life on completion of this final tour de force, intended to bid farewell to the world. Gauguin planned his demise with artistic flair: he would climb to the top of a nearby mountain, take a large dose of arsenic (which he had in plentiful supply to treat the syphilis sores on his body), and lay down to die, to be eaten by ants. In fact, the arsenic didn’t work and he survived, claiming that he took such a giant dose that his stomach rejected it at once and he was therefore given a second chance. The suicide attempt was dismissed by many of his fellow artists as an attention-seeking effort to revive interest in his work, as Gauguin was becoming anxious about being forgotten.
The painting, titled Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, was more than 3m long, the length of the shack-cum-studio he had named “The House of Orgasm”. As he couldn’t afford canvas, Gauguin stitched together long strips of local sackcloth as a paint support, and used empty coconut shells for palettes.
After years of growing miserable and homesick, and with news of his closest daughter’s death from pneumonia, the artist decided to make one final painting, the most towering of his career.
He wrote that he was planning to take his own life on completion of this final tour de force, intended to bid farewell to the world. Gauguin planned his demise with artistic flair: he would climb to the top of a nearby mountain, take a large dose of arsenic (which he had in plentiful supply to treat the syphilis sores on his body), and lay down to die, to be eaten by ants. In fact, the arsenic didn’t work and he survived, claiming that he took such a giant dose that his stomach rejected it at once and he was therefore given a second chance. The suicide attempt was dismissed by many of his fellow artists as an attention-seeking effort to revive interest in his work, as Gauguin was becoming anxious about being forgotten.
The painting, titled Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, was more than 3m long, the length of the shack-cum-studio he had named “The House of Orgasm”. As he couldn’t afford canvas, Gauguin stitched together long strips of local sackcloth as a paint support, and used empty coconut shells for palettes.
Gauguin's painting Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? Credit: Hulton Fine Art Collection/Getty
The painting is divided into three sections, designed to be read right to left. It begins by first depicting the birth of new life, followed by Old Testament connotations that picture natives picking and eating apples. Finally, on the left, we see an elderly lady and a mysterious blue deity. The figures appear out of proportion to one another – “deliberately so”, Gauguin wrote – as if they were floating in space rather than resting firmly upon the earth.
The fruit picker at the centre of the painting is of ambiguous gender, and, being surrounded by women, is commonly assumed to be a female. However, it is a “mahu”, a caste of effeminate men revered for their mystical powers. Gauguin himself had been mistaken for a mahu when he arrived in Tahiti with his shoulder-length hair, and he had remained fascinated by them.
“I believe that this canvas not only surpasses all my preceding ones, but also that I shall never do anything better, or even like it,” Gauguin wrote. “I have finished a philosophical work on a theme comparable to that of the Gospel.”
The blue tribal icon in the painting, with its hands gesturing up to the heavens and a placid expression, was not painted from reality. Gauguin often painted these god-like figures in his Tahitian paintings, though they never existed in that part of the world; instead he referenced these deities from the sketchbooks he had compiled back in Paris, drawing inspiration from Asian and particularly Indian religious statues, inserting them into his vision of Tahiti.
The fruit picker at the centre of the painting is of ambiguous gender, and, being surrounded by women, is commonly assumed to be a female. However, it is a “mahu”, a caste of effeminate men revered for their mystical powers. Gauguin himself had been mistaken for a mahu when he arrived in Tahiti with his shoulder-length hair, and he had remained fascinated by them.
“I believe that this canvas not only surpasses all my preceding ones, but also that I shall never do anything better, or even like it,” Gauguin wrote. “I have finished a philosophical work on a theme comparable to that of the Gospel.”
The blue tribal icon in the painting, with its hands gesturing up to the heavens and a placid expression, was not painted from reality. Gauguin often painted these god-like figures in his Tahitian paintings, though they never existed in that part of the world; instead he referenced these deities from the sketchbooks he had compiled back in Paris, drawing inspiration from Asian and particularly Indian religious statues, inserting them into his vision of Tahiti.
Nafea faa ipoipo (When will you marry?) by Paul Gauguin Credit: Corbis Historical/ Photo Josse/Leemage
Though some still view him as a “foul man”, today Gauguin is considered, along with Cézanne, as one of the founders of modern art. He introduced the concept of a boldly innovative aesthetic – the notion that ideas dominate technique. Gauguin’s paintings are now among the most valuable in the world. His 1892 work Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) is currently one of the world’s most expensive paintings. It was sold in February 2015 by the Swiss Staechelin Family Trust to the rulers of Qatar for more than $200 million (£148 million), to be hung in their national museum. It’s a sum Gauguin would find deeply gratifying.
As for the fate of Gauguin’s masterwork, the sublime Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, it was displayed with a group of Gauguin’s other Tahitian paintings at the legendary Parisian gallery of Ambroise Vollard that specialised in vanguard artists. But the dealer had difficulty selling the “large picture”, as Gauguin called it.
Efforts by the artist’s Parisian friends to collectively acquire the painting and donate it to the French state were never realised. The picture shuttled between galleries and private collections in France and Norway, until the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, purchased it in 1936.
Today, it is considered the most profound masterpiece in a museum filled with masterpieces.
As for the fate of Gauguin’s masterwork, the sublime Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, it was displayed with a group of Gauguin’s other Tahitian paintings at the legendary Parisian gallery of Ambroise Vollard that specialised in vanguard artists. But the dealer had difficulty selling the “large picture”, as Gauguin called it.
Efforts by the artist’s Parisian friends to collectively acquire the painting and donate it to the French state were never realised. The picture shuttled between galleries and private collections in France and Norway, until the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, purchased it in 1936.
Today, it is considered the most profound masterpiece in a museum filled with masterpieces.
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