PAUL GAUGIN
(1848-1903)
Like many other artists at the turn of the nineteenth century in France, Gauguin was attracted to the Pont-Aven area of Brittany because of its remoteness in every sense. The language bore traces of an unchanged ancient Celtic civilisation that offered enormous potential to artists. The fact that outsiders were not welcomed made it all the more appealing to Gauguin: ‘I love Brittany, I find there the savage, the primitive. When my wooden shoes reverberate on this granite soil, I hear the muffled, heavy and powerful note I am seeking in my painting’.
This print is based on drawings that Gauguin made during his second stay in Pont-Aven in 1888, and is the seventh in a series of ten zincographs and a cover, which were later published by him in 1889 in Paris. The series Joies de Bretagne was exhibited at the Impressionist and Synthetist exhibition of 1889, by which time Gauguin had reached full stylistic maturity. Émile Bernard (1868-1941) whom he had met in Pont-Aven, introduced Gauguin to the synthetist or cloissonist manner (the simplification of forms into large-scale patterns bound by a clearly marked line). This style can be detected in the Joies de Bretagne.
In addition to the stylistic influences of Bernard, Gauguin was equally inspired by the increasingly popular Japanese prints that had penetrated the European print market at the end of the nineteenth century. The use of brilliant yellow paper was novel at this time and was soon taken up by artists such as MUNCH, KIRCHNER and FEININGER. When Vollard, who acted as Gauguin’s agent during his time in the Pacific, came into possession of the plates, he reprinted the series on an inferior imitation yellow japan paper.
Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.
Extract taken from Prints, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery .