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Paul Gauguin: in search for synthetism

In summer 1888 in Bretagne, in a small town Pont-Aven, which was soon destined to become a ╚Mecca╩ of new art, Gauguin paints ╚The still life with three puppies╩. The space of the canvas is divided vertically into three successively alterna-ting zones, each of which inside of itself develops the rhythm specified ≈ three puppies, three glasses, three round fruit, three groups of fruit.

Three puppies, lapping from the pan, three glasses and three round fruit, a vase and a napkin with fruit ≈ set one below another, they seem the lines of a manuscript, inscribed on the surface of the white cloth (this effect is achieved due to the high view point). Such arrangement specifies the succession of the painting reading (from the upper line to the lower) and at the same time settles the context of its artistic perception. Depriving the viewer of the possibility to resort to the traditional way of detection of cause-and-effect relations between the objects, Gauguin instantly transfers him into the artistic reality, existing solely by the laws, set by the master, and only following them one can perceive the sense of his juxtapositions.

P. Cezanne. Apples, peaches, pears and grape. 1879√1890. Oil on canvas. 38.5 x 46.5 cm. The State Hermitage Museum [zoom (48k)]

First of all the austere clarity in the compositional structure draws the attention. Expressly ternary structure of the glasses in the central line serves the tuning fork of the threeness. Such accentuation of the rhythm calls up the idea of the painter▓s urge to assimilate the composition of the canvas to that of an ornament. The origination of this impression is stimulated by the accurate distribution of the objects along two crossing diagonals and the central line that fixes the image on the surface. Strict rhythm and laconism liken the composition with the syntactic structure of a sentence, whose clearly cut structure permits to concentrate instantly on its contents.

Gauguin involves us into an intricate game, forcing to follow the correlation of planes and volumes regardless the animateness of the object portrayed. Thus in the upper zone he places practically silhouette depictions of puppies, fixing them on the surface with accurately defined contours, and next to them ≈ a deep pan, filled with liquid, casting shadow. In the middle line next to the glasses spread along the canvas surface resilient fruit appear. And only the lower part of the painting is free of such opposition. On the contrary, the fruit are painted solidly, according to the rules of plastic modeling of volumes considering the source of light, falling shadow and the place of the objects in the three-dimensional space. And only the napkin flowing from the table reminds that it▓s still a part of a composition extended on the surface.

All the forms, whether planes or volumes, Gauguin delineates with an expressive contour, intentionally emphasizing the silhouette basis, due to what the line acquires an independent character, converting the image into a whimsical lacing of arabesque.

Meanwhile, interpreting the forms, Gauguin frees them of everything secondary, leaving only the most characteristic. Three ovals of different sizes placed over each other ╚make up╩ a glass, while in a result of the combination of two cylinders a pan emerges. Such generalization, on the one hand, makes the forms easily read in the context of the painting, while on the other hand, it evokes analogies with child drawings, corresponding to the painting ironical, naпve and simple-hearted mood. The fact that this analogy was a well-thought device is confirmed by Van Gogh utterance, referring to the August of 1888: ╚Gauguin and Bernard say that one should ╚draw as children do╩. I▓d rather prefer it to the painting of decadents╩. Colour solution of the canvas is also peculiar. An utterly decorative principal of the distribution of the colour splashes along the light, woven of the white, light blue and pink tinges background, lies in its basis. Viewing the middle part as a certain neutral zone executed in the modulations of blue and green, the location of the colour accents in the painting in the whole can be visualized in a figure of an ellipse, its arcs and extreme points of diagonals being fixed by identical tinges. Thus the orange spot of the ear of the right puppy correlates with the similar one on the left pear; the tongue of the left puppy blazes with the same intensively red as the lower fruit, while between them green, yellow and ochreous hues are interrelating, twining into a subtle colour harmony.

Having turned to the texture of painting we shall discover ╚mystification╩, registered previously in the treatment of forms. Fruit are painted solidly, ponderously, boldly modelled with colour, while the figures of puppies are filled with laconically coloured planes and the flower on the back of the middle puppy, identical to the pattern of the cloth, converts it into the part of the ornament.

And nevertheless due to strictly thought-out colour composition, fixing the image on the surface, different in plastic modelling parts of the painting become an integrate decorative whole.

What is the sense of fantastic metamorphoses, Gauguin is constantly appealing to? The question the more justified, for on each stage of the painting examination we face the idea of transformation. Most likely in the basis there lies the right of the artist ╚to dare for everything╩, asserted by the whole course of Gauguin▓s life and creative work, ╚having realized yourself╩ to create artistic reality.

Challenging the hackneyed norms, which have maintained in European art since Renaissance, he utterly neglects linear and air perspective, practically absolutely expels shades and volumes, demonstrates commitment to local colour ≈ in other words declares war to everything illusionary. This clash of two systems becomes the leading theme of ╚The still life with three puppies╩. Starting off the depiction of fruit in the lower part of the canvas ≈ per se the quotation from Cezanne paintings (remember, for example, his still life ╚Fruit╩ (about 1879√1882, The Hermitage) ≈ Gauguin asserts his own laws in painting. It▓s curious to note that in the portrayal of puppies the scientists also see the transformed quotation ≈ that of the print by the Japanese painter Kuniyoshi ╚The cats╩.

Paul Gauguin. Still-life with three Puppies 1888. Oil on panel. 92.0 x 63.0 cm. New York. Museum of Modern Art [zoom (69k)]

The interaction with Japanese tradition is indisputable in the course of Gauguin▓s new artistic principles generation. He couldn▓t but be attracted by the virtuosic handling of line, the use of peculiar foreshortenings and decorative splendor, distinguishing Japanese prints. The artist▓s interest in Oriental culture, exhibited before, acquires new qualities. The possibility for more substantial acquaintance with Japanese art emerged in 1887, when the exhibition, devoted to Japanese prints took place in Paris, and since 1888 Samuel Bing had exposed in his shop original works and launched the magazine ╚Art of Japan╩.

It was Japanese art that caused the origin of ╚cloisonnisme╩. When in 1888, in Brussels, and later on in Paris the first works of Louis Anquetin appeared at the exhibition of ╚The group of twenty╩, their technique was defined by Van Gogh as ╚japanism╩, while Edouard Dujardin, saluting the birth of a new style, gave it the following characteristics: ╚Ex facte these works produce an impression of decorative painting; accentuated outlines, intensive and persuasive colour inevitably evoke the idea of folk art and Japanese prints. Then under the general hierarchal character you discover striking truthfulness, that frees itself from the romanticism of passion; and, finally, in front of us the well-considered, willful, rational and systematic structure, demanding our analysis is revealed╩. It was him who gave the name to the new art form ≈ ╚cloisonnism╩ (from the French ▓cloison▓), having found in it certain parallels with the technique of cloisonne production.

The painting, produced in this technique, according to the drawing, was divided into a series of accurately outlined exclusive planes, coinciding with this or that figure, each of which was filled with local colour in order to reach the most expressive decorative effect. Emile Bernard directly participated in the elaboration of this style. In the cooperation with Anquetin it was him, who, in the opinion of J.Rewald, held the initiative. The views of Bernard, in their turn, were closely connected with the concepts of the symbolist writers, which the artist communicated to Gauguin, when he came to Pont╛Aven in summer 1888.

As time showed, the program of ╚cloisonnism╩, consistently implemented, in fact, turned into emasculated decorativeness, which is proved by the late creative work of Bernard (for example, ╚Breton women with umbrellas╩, 1892). Interpreted by Gauguin, ╚cloisonnism╩, having obtained profound ideological and at the same time perfected practical basis, received a new name, more appealing to the painter ≈ synthetism. Synthetic perception of reality was meant to reorient the artist from the fixation of objective reality onto deeper and more wholesome comprehension of the world. The painter discovered interconnection between the phenomena, visible only to the poetic soul of a genuine creator. ╚Don▓t copy nature too much. Art is an abstraction; derive this abstraction from nature while dreaming before it, and think more of the creation which will result. This is the only way of mounting towards God ≈ doing as our Devine Master does, create╩.

New guideline demanded the change of artistic language, and Gauguin relentlessly commits this transformation. In the network of the war he declared to the illusionary, he fist of all formulates his attitude to direct and air perspective. ╚Correct in the painting this impregnable perspective, which distorts the objects look in favour of portrayal▓s precision. For even in the contact with nature the painting is created by our imagination╩.

In the works of Pont-Aven period (1888√1900) Gauguin invents most improbable ways of manipulation with space. He uses high horizon line in combination with intensively coloured distant plans (that flattens the space). At the same time the artist constructs certain landmarks on the way of the viewer▓s glance, as the Japanese did (▒The swineherd╩ (1888, coll. N. Simon, Los Angeles), ╚Hello, Mr. Gauguin!╩ (1898, National Gallery, Prague). He shifts the plans, ▒missing▓ the middle ones (╚The girls in Le Pouldu╩; 1889. coll. Schindler, Unterwald, Switzerland and ╚The Yellow Christ╩; 1889, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo). Choosing different points of view over the subjects, matched in a single plane, Gauguin creates at the development of space along the canvas plane downright ╚diving╩ perspective and vice versa ≈ the ╚flushing╩ one (╚Portrait of Meyer de Haan╩ and ╚The vision after the sermon╩; 1888, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh) or imparts absolute flatness to the composition (╚La Belle Angele╩; 1889, Musee d▓Orsay, Paris, ╚Self-portrait with nimbus╩; 1889, National Gallery, Washington). And all this is done to mythologize ordinary reality.

Gauguin▓s attitude to the problems of drawing and colour was no less radical. Conviction of the necessity of ╚synthesis of form and colour, regardless of what is dominating╩, Gauguin will carry through all his creative work, while the postulate ≈ ╚the drawing comes out of the colour and vice versa╩ ≈ will become his artistic credo. ╚To draw sincerely, ≈ Gauguin will write in one of his essays,≈ doesn▓t mean to copy nature, it means to be able to use artistic means of expression, which do not conceal the idea╩. Such understanding of drawing opens a wide road to such an important notion in Gauguin▓s system as transformation. In the essays written in different years, including those produced on Tahiti, the artist, ╚speaking of painting as a painter╩, recurs to this problem repeatedly and appealing to Giotto, Rafael, Velasquez, Delacroix doesn▓t seize pursuing the right of the artist for transforming the reality according to the artistic concept.

Necessary exaggeration of these or those properties of nature is induced, in Gauguin▓s opinion, by the fact that the creation of human hands can▓t be identical to the reality portrayed. In the arsenal of the man there are too little means, to portray the world in all its diversity, to render the heat of the sun and so on. That▓s why the painter, preserving the truth of colour relations, is free to enhance chromatic potency of colour, creating not a copy of nature, but its equivalent ≈ ╚What do you see these trees? Are they yellow? So put yellow. Is this shade rather blue? Paint it with pure ultramarine. Are these leaves red? Use vermilion╩. Following these rules Paul Serusier painted his famous ╚Talisman╩ (1888, private coll., France), having impressed in this landscape the precepts of the master and communicated them to his friends from the Julian Academy, the future ╚Nabis╩. ╚Thus for the first time we had the fruitful conception of the surface covered with paints in a definite order presented in the paradoxical, unforgettable form. Thus we got to know that each work of art is an exposition, a caricature, a passionate equivalent of the sensation received╩, ≈ Maurice Denis recollects.

Gauguin calls upon to pain exclusively with pure colour, alluding that nature acts the same way. ╚Green near yellow doesn▓t give reddish-brown, as if it were a mixture, but two vibrant notes. Near this red put yellow chrome, and you have three notes, enriching each other and enhancing the intensity of the first tone ≈ green. Instead of yellow put blue ≈ you will have three different tones, also vibrating due to their neighbourhood. Put violet instead of blue ≈ and you will fall into a single tone, but compound, belonging to the scale of reds╩.

Paul Serusier. The Talisman. 1888. Oil on panel. Private collection [zoom (89k)]

The only organizing basis in this orgy of pure colours is harmony. ╚Oh, if you consider exaggeration each poorly balanced painting, ≈ Gauguin writes in his ╚Synthetic notes╩, ≈ then you are right, but I dare remark, that whatever timid or pale your painting might be, exaggeration will be inculpated to it if harmony is broken┘ In this respect feeling of colour is in its essence the understanding of natural harmony╩.

At the same time Gauguin continues dwelling on the problem of ╚the soul of colour╩, its suggestive potential, that has been bothering him for a long time. The artist staying in November 1888 in Arles together with Van Gogh, also possessed with the idea, played an important part in the formation of his ideas in this field.

The phenomenon of colour in the artistic system of Gauguin was so overwhelming, that it naturally embraced the aspect of light as well, whose potency and quality equivalent the colour intensity was perceived. Participating in Bernard and Laval discussion of the meaning of shadow, Gauguin writes: ╚Look at the Japanese, who draw so admirably, and you will see that there is life on the open air and in the sun without shadows. They use colour only as the combination of tones, as different harmonies, producing the impression of heat┘ That▓s why I will have as little as possible to do with what gives the illusion of a thing, and since shadows are the trompe l▓oeil of the sun, I am inclined to suppress them╩.

Comprehension of the power of the emotional influence of colour in combination with expressive form, on the one hand, and the urge to create a synthetic image, on the other, result in the alteration of the very technique of painting. Unmixed paints, laid over the canvas in tiny separate strokes, inevitably attenuate chromatic might of colour, while assembled into big planes, they, on the contrary, endow it with unprecedented sonority.

Following Gauguin▓s reasoning it would have been logical to expect the appearance of vast planes of local colour in his paintings (as in the works of his followers Bernard and Laval). On the other hand, Gauguin was too much obsessed with colour to sacrifice an infinite diversity of natural harmonies. That is why he often worked with juxtaposed tones, preserving the wealth of colour modulations.

All these constituents of artistic language were conceived in the indissoluble unity, whose form- and sense-generating basis was an artistic concept. Only in this case the genuine ╚synthesis╩ was born, the integrity of the designatum and the signifier. It is this doctrine, though in a quite radical manner, that ╚The still life with three puppies╩ declares. In the letter to Emile Schuffenecker, dating by the time of the still life creation, Gauguin writes: ╚This year I have sacrificed everything ≈ execution, colour ≈ for style, I wanted to compel myself to do something different to what I already can. I think that is the transformation which hasn▓t born fruit yet, but will definitely do╩. However, Gauguin himself loathed all sort of theories too much, to take his own one really serious. Hence the tinge of irony, pervading the ╚The still life with three puppies╩ and an inevitable way outside, beyond the style limits, to new harmonies.