Yesterday I spent time in the exhibition of Gauguin portraits at the National Gallery in London. I’m not entirely sure what persuaded me to take in this particular show, but I’m glad that I did. I came out puzzling over a very different view of him from the one with which I started.
The early portraits confirmed the common view of Gauguin, as rather self-centred, with an exaggerated view of his own importance (those comparisons of himself with Jesus), and characterised by thoroughly colonialist view of his South Sea island subjects. By the time I left I wanted to go beyond, without abandoning, this.
The Gauguin I thought I glimpsed was perpetually self-doubting behind the bluster, retreating from direct challenges, subject to revisions of his own judgements both about art and about people. The last portrait, painted shortly before his death in 1903, must be viewed as a challenge to all the cliches about him.
An amusing footnote to yesterday is the fact that I was mistaken for a Frenchman. I do remember a previous blog in which I commented on the way in which I feel that I stand out as a tourist when in London….but I didn’t think it was that bad!