PAUL GAUGIN
(1848-1903)
This image is one of ten woodcuts concerned with Tahitian mythology. It is based on watercolours that Gauguin produced in 1892 as part of a manuscript on Ancien culte mahorie, which he later re-interpreted in a text that became Noa Noa, a tale of his discovery of the island of Tahiti and its religious traditions. Illustrated from right to left, are the creation of the lesser gods, ancestors of the great chiefs, and the first Tahitians at the time of the deluge. Shapes appear to emerge and crystallize into human forms in a fluid composition that is enhanced by the emergence of light from dark.
Increasingly restless due to a succession of setbacks to his career in Europe, Gauguin set off for Tahiti in 1891 in search of an exotic paradise that he hoped would nurture his latent primitive style. By June of 1893, Gauguin had returned to Paris. Although disillusioned with his expectations of Tahiti, which had not been the Eden he had imagined as numerous expatriates began to inhabit the island, Gauguin had made considerable progress with both his sculpture and woodcuts.
Gauguin was instrumental in reviving the art of the woodcut at the end of the nineteenth century. He chose end-grain boxwood because it provided a grainy texture, which suited his printmaking purposes. Working with a chisel and gouge, he sculpted the wood to incise crisp lines, while sandpaper was used to blur the tones.
Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.
Extract taken from Prints, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery .