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All Of It with Alison Stewart
Full Bio: Paul Gauguin's Art and Friendship with Van Gogh
00:26:54
In today's Full Bio, we cover the beginnings of Gauguin's artistic career, and his meaningful but tumultuous friendship with Vincent Van Gogh.
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- [00:08]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Later this hour we speaking to Cynthia Nixon about starring in and Just like that and the Gilded Age. Both shows have finales this week. And on tomorrow's show we've got music from Mireya Ramos. She's the co founder of the all female New York City mariachi band Flor de Toloche. And she has a new solo album out. And we'll continue our summer reading challenge Classics Week and take your calls on the acclaimed and controversial Lolita. That's all in the future. Now let's continue the show with Paul Gauguin. Full bio is our book series where we spend a few days with the author of a deeply researched biography to get a fuller understanding of the subject. The book we are discussing is a profile of the 19th century self taught French artist. It is called Wild A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prudho. Yesterday we covered the controversy around Gauguin and his early life story. Listen back to those sections if you have time. Today we've arrived at Gauguin's early adulthood. When Gauguin's mother died, he was just a teenager living in France. He was looked after by a family friend and art collector, Gustave Arosa. He arranged for Gauguin to get a job as a stockbroker. Most importantly, he introduced Gauguin to art. Arosa also made the match between Gauguin and the woman he would marry, a very smart woman named Mette. They married in November of 1873 and would go on to have five children. But problems arose when he used all of his money and assets to pursue a career as an artist. Gauguin did not sell much, but he did catch the attention of an agent by the name of Theo Van Gogh. And that would lead to a strange relationship with his brother Vincent, who's Suzanne Prideaux, author of Wild A Life of Paul Gauguin.
- [02:16]
Sue Prudho
We've reached the point where he is sort of an adult. He has a job as a stockbroker. He was able to make a living. How long did he stay a stockbroker? Was he happy being a stockbroker?
- [02:29]
Unnamed Art Historian
Well, I mean, it's most unlikely looking at his, you know, early life. But he was more than able to make a, a living. He was incredibly successful and he made lots of money, became legendary for taking a taxi into, into work and then keeping it ticking while he did his deals and then taking it home again. They said he owned 14 pairs of trousers. What did he spend his money on? He didn't he wasn't interested in money for money's sake. But it's 1874, the first impressionist exhibition, and he goes there and he buys Monet, Degas and Cezanne. And then in the evenings, on weekends, he taught himself to paint by copying them. He literally hadn't picked up a paintbrush till then. I mean, most painters, you know, there are lovely stories of, you know, when he was a child, he picked up a piece of coal and drew, but Gauguin actually didn't at all. And I really can't think of many other painters who started painting at 25 years old. Four years later, he was exhibiting alongside his heroes in the Impressionist exhibitions, which is pretty amazing. And of course, now you don't think of Gauguin as an Impressionist painter, but that's how he started. And when he got a bit more confident, he took lessons from Pizarro on weekends. And his first, you know, proper paintings are heavily influenced by Pissarro.
- [04:08]
Alison Stewart
Yes. I'm going to ask. He wanted to learn to paint. What did he learn from his teacher, from Pissarro?
- [04:16]
Unnamed Art Historian
It's a good question. Actually. His early Impressionist paintings are pretty clotted, you know, and he. He had trouble with believable perspective, really. There's an early one called Working the Land, which is always sort of hailed as his first proper painting. And you honestly, you think the sky's going to fall down on the field. It's so sort of heavy. And, you know, he obviously loved painting the sky, so he overworked it dreadfully and it's right out of proportion. But, you know, he was good enough to exhibit with them. And the first thing he exhibited with them, in fact, was a beautiful, beautiful marble bust of Mette, who became his wife.
- [05:13]
Alison Stewart
Well, that's good. This is a good place for us to talk about Metta. We'll sort of talk about her out of context. I would like to talk about their relationship as a whole, if that's okay. He met this woman, Mette, a Danish woman. She was smart, she was bright. First of all, how did they meet?
- [05:32]
Unnamed Art Historian
Literally, on a boulevard. Rather wonderful. He writes about it and he says, you know, we met on the boulevard under the chestnut flowers. But actually it was in October, so the chestnuts couldn't possibly have been flowering. And then they met again. They went to the same restaurant, they met again. And it was. They just. It was what the French call a coup de foodre. Love at first sight. Absolutely bang.
- [05:59]
Alison Stewart
When you think about her goal in life and his goal in life at the time that they met, what was her goal and what was his goal?
- [06:07]
Unnamed Art Historian
Okay, well, he was sort of busy being a stockbroker and starting on the painting thing. She had been the governess to the. She was Danish. The governess to the children of the Danish prime minister. And he obviously respected her very much and treated her as an intelligent being whose opinions were valuable actually, for him in his job. So that was great success. And so she wanted to come to Paris to learn French anyway. Paris was the center of the universe, you know. And so she came with a girlfriend, and they were just really sort of, you know, learning to speak French and seeing the sights. And then there was Gauguin, and they fell instantly with. In love, as I said. They married within the year, and he. He wrote rather smugly that she was everything he could possibly want for or need. And he felt sorry for his fellow Impressionist painters who racketed around with sort of brothels and mistresses and things when he and Meta had such a great time together. He doesn't describe their sex life, but from his letters to his friends, it's obvious they both enjoyed it very much. And they had five children in quick succession.
- [07:37]
Sue Prudho
It's interesting because I want to talk about the art that he made of his family, as you said. There's this beautiful marble sculpture of Meta. It's only one of two that was made. I think the Meta one lives in the uk. This picture, excuse me, the sculpture of.
- [07:51]
Alison Stewart
Emile, lives at the Met here in New York City.
- [07:55]
Sue Prudho
And in my humble opinion, the paintings about his family of her and of the children initially, they're really quite beautiful.
- [08:03]
Unnamed Art Historian
Yes.
- [08:04]
Sue Prudho
What did he see? What did he see as his relationship between his family and his art?
- [08:13]
Unnamed Art Historian
Well, Meta was jolly awkward because she really hated posing. He had to snatch pictures of her. You know, there's one of her asleep on the sofa. He had to do them very quickly, which. Which adds a great sort of freshness and excitement to them. And then he does the usual, you know, rather not very good sort of chalk drawings of his. Of his little ones, you know, big eyes and pretty faces. But then there's one which is totally amazing. He. They called one of his sons Clovis, after Gauguin's dad, you know, who died on the journey out to Peru. There's one called Clovis Asleep, which is in Gauguin's Impression period, so it's in the Impressionist style. And Gauguin, Clovis, the little child, is asleep with his head on the table. And then above him, Gauguin has put what he imagines are Clovis's dreams, but he's sort on the wall behind, so it looks. At first you think it's a wallpaper with these funny creatures on, but then you realize it's his dreams and then you make the connection back to the strange creatures on the Peru Moche Potts. So he was interested in his children's interior, conscious of his children's interior life and his children as separate people, you know, rather than just sort of, my kids belong to me.
- [09:46]
Alison Stewart
He seemed so taken with her. Yet they would spend years and years apart. What happened to them that they would end up spending so much time apart?
- [09:59]
Unnamed Art Historian
It was so sad, really. 1882, the Paris Stock market crashed and Gauguin lost. He never saved any money, of course, so he lost everything in one fell swoop. Money, wife, family. Mette moved back home to live with her mother in Denmark, taking the children. Gauguin remained in France, trying and failing to make it as a painter. But of course, after a bit, almost a year, he wanted to join his family. So he organized a job for himself, being a sort of representative, selling tarpaulins. In Denmark, I think you call them tarps. Tarpaulins, yes. It was a total disaster. He couldn't speak Danish, which is a pretty difficult language to learn. And if you're selling, you've really got to learn the language, haven't you? And of course, he'd arrived just at a moment when the demand for tarpaulins had fallen drastically because closed goods carriages on trains had been invented. And if you've got a roof on a goods carriage, you don't need a tarpaulin. So of course he couldn't sell them. Mehta's family took a very dim view of him. They didn't think art was a proper job. Impressionism was modern rubbish. And basically they couldn't see the point of Gauguin at all. In fact, they sniggered behind their hands and they called him the missing link. And so Methe banished him to paint up in the attic, and we can see how unhappy he was. He paints a self portrait in the attic. 1885, and he's all hunched up with cold and his nose is red because he's so cold and the ceiling of the attic is obviously so low he can't stand up or he bang his head. And he mounted an art show in Copenhagen and nothing sold and he couldn't sell tarpaulins. And he went back to France, where then basically, actually, he starved. He Got a. This is one of the very lowest points in his life. He got a job posting up posters on Paris hoardings at 7 francs a day and kept himself going by selling the Impressionist canvases he'd bought in the days he was rich. And he hated, he hated parting with his beloved pictures, but it enabled him to paint and in fact, his hardship made him all the more determined to become a painter and. Yeah, so, so they fought over money.
- [12:39]
Alison Stewart
Was a big part of it.
- [12:40]
Unnamed Art Historian
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Meta stayed in, in, in Denmark and she gave lessons to diplomats and Gauguin suggested that she translate Zola's novels into French, because Zola was very big at the time. And she did, and that really kept her going. You know, that was good income for her, which was great.
- [13:06]
Sue Prudho
At one point, and then we'll move on with Gauguin. But I think it's interesting, at one point in the relationship, she decides to.
- [13:14]
Alison Stewart
Sell some paintings.
- [13:17]
Sue Prudho
And it really gets to him.
- [13:21]
Unnamed Art Historian
Yes, well, he, he, he was very generous with her. And when she went back to Denmark, obviously he had nowhere to store the paintings. And so he said, you know, you must take them. And it was quite a big collection. And she sold them sort of one by one to, you know, to, to feed herself and the kids, et cetera. Though she, she was living with her mother. But, you know, she'd say, what shall I sell now? You know, what shall I sell now? And he'd say, oh, well, sell the money of this or whatever. But when she. There was a moment when she sold some paintings that he really didn't want her to sell and she hadn't consulted him, and he was extremely upset by that. He felt, you know, although she could get the profit from it, she really shouldn't, you know, deplete his collection without, without his say so.
- [14:16]
Sue Prudho
And just for the record, they didn't divorce.
- [14:19]
Unnamed Art Historian
No, no, they didn't divorce. Her family very much wanted them to divorce, but they had a conference about it and they both felt that once you were married, you were married, and particularly when you had children and you stayed married and that was that. And also, actually, they both, in the early years, Gauguin was quite convinced that he was going to be able to make his fortune as a painter and his family would come and join him and they'd all live happily ever after. Never happened.
- [14:53]
Sue Prudho
My guest is Sue Prudho. The name of her book is Wild Thing. A Life of Paul Gauguin. It's our choice for full bio. Paul Gauguin, he is a painter. He's decided he's a painter whether he gets paid for it or not. But he does have, he does catch the interest of Theo van Gogh. And Theo van Gogh chooses to be his agent. And you describe this as a turning point for him around 1888, I think it was. What did Theo.
- [15:23]
Unnamed Art Historian
Important. Important, yeah. My gosh, Yes. A little sort of preface to this is that in 1887 the Panama Canal Company was advertising for workers. Gauguin had no money, so he went out to dig the Panama Canal. And usual Gauguin luck. Within a fortnight of getting there, the Panama Canal Company was laying off workers. So he was laid off. But he went off to Martinique where he made some marvelous paintings.
- [16:03]
Sue Prudho
Theo saw the paintings that Gauguin had made, right?
- [16:09]
Unnamed Art Historian
Exactly. Absolutely. He, he, he saw them and, and his brother, Vincent van Gogh saw them. Theo was an art dealer. Vincent obviously, you know, the painter. And they were living together and Vincent became absolutely obsessed with the idea of, of painting with Gauguin. And so he invited Gauguin to come and live with him in the Yellow House in Arles. By a very original way. He sent him a self portrait dedicated to Gauguin as the invitation. What an amazing way to extend an invitation. Gauguin replied with his own self portrait of Van Gogh. And the rather idealistic plan was cemented by the brother, Theo van Gogh, who was supporting Vincent with a monthly allowance that Vincent always overspent. And he now, he offered to pay Gauguin 150 francs a month to go and live with Vincent in the Yellow House. And Gauguin took up the offer. Well, he arrived in the autumn of 1888 and they painted together for nine weeks. And so of course begins one of the most famous episodes in art history, culminating in Vincent cutting off his ear on Christmas Eve.
- [17:35]
Alison Stewart
First of all, they were the. First of all, they were the odd couple. Can we say go was tidy? Vincent was not.
- [17:43]
Unnamed Art Historian
We could indeed pour out Vincent. Well, you know, he was, he was, he was not well, he was oppressive, bipolar, alcoholic, he had syphilis, he had psychotic episodes. He was possibly epileptic. You know, it was all up and down, up and down, up and down. But anyway, Vincent was very, very excited that Gauguin was going to come and live with him. And that's when he paints his famous Sunflower paintings, all his sunflower paintings to hang in Gauguin's bedroom as he, as Vincent said, like a huge welcoming bouquet. I mean, what a bouquet, what a welcome.
- [18:21]
Alison Stewart
I wanted to ask about the two self portraits that you describe because you have them in your book. The book is full of all kinds of beautiful imagery and they're really interesting. What would you say? How would you describe Vincent's self portrait versus Gauguin's self portrait?
- [18:39]
Unnamed Art Historian
Well, Vincent sand self portrait is. He has represented himself. It is self portrait as a Japanese bonze B O N Z E a Japanese monk. So he's got his head shaved. His face is absolutely skeletal. He's rather bristly. It's against a plain, plain wonderful jade green background. And he does, frankly, look a little unhinged. Gauguin's self portrait that he sent back is. He's a vigorous wild thing from Peru. You know, he emphasizes the hooked nose. He's got a strange look in his eye. And he puts himself against a yellow background with beautiful flowers, beautiful like yellow wallpaper. And then right up in the corner, he's done a little portrait of the artist Emile Bernard, who was meant to be coming to join them but never did. So you've got the very, very ascetic Van Gogh, really, and actually the very sensual Gauguin.
- [19:56]
Alison Stewart
What was the basis of their friendship?
- [20:00]
Unnamed Art Historian
Well, they were both fascinated by Japanese art, by art itself, and they wanted to paint. They were both coming out of the Impressionists, really had run out of road. You know, all those lovely little brush strokes, you know, sort of dissolving color and so on and so forth, blending color into their components part. And that had rarely been taken to the limit. And so what you do after Impressionism, and that's what Van Gogh and Gauguin are doing. And they're finding the answers to this in Japanese art, in Gauguin's, the art that Gauguin made in Martinique when he went to dig the Panama Canal. Because in Martinique, of course, in the tropics, you really cannot use Impressionist technique because the light is so strong. And so you have to use solid color fields and jolly solid colors too. And so they were moving towards the whole thing of post Impressionism, which is much more definite, disregards realism, disregards conventional perspective and just emphasizes what they want to emphasize, you know, the best. Hokusai's wave was very important to them. Okay, so if you think about Hokusai's wave, you think of how definite the image is, how it's not in a picture box, it's not in perspective, it's just this incredible shape, this incredible, enormous shape. And if you think of the scale of the little fishing boat that's on the bottom of the waves, it's tiny. I mean, there'd be ants. And so Hokusa has privileged the emotion and the feeling of men are so tiny in this great force of nature. And it was that bringing forward of the emotion and rejecting trying to be realistic that Van Gogh and Gauguin were doing. Bringing art into post Impressionism, as you.
- [22:20]
Alison Stewart
Mentioned, this time in NARAL was when Vincent cut his ear off after a series of tense moments with Gauguin. People have to read about it. But why did Gauguin decide I need to leave?
- [22:37]
Unnamed Art Historian
Oh, it was so sad. There was a build up to it really. It might not have happened if it hadn't been so terribly, terribly rainy in November and December. And so they couldn't go out and paint en plein air, which was what they were doing, you know, taking their easels outside and painting. The yellow house is absolutely tiny. I don't know if you've ever been there.
- [23:02]
Alison Stewart
I have.
- [23:03]
Unnamed Art Historian
And claustrophobic obviously. And so Gauguin hit upon this thing. He said, okay Vincent, you know, let's paint chairs. So Vincent paints the famous chair paintings of Gauguin's chair and his chair and so on and so forth. But really they'd run out of anything to do and Gauguin tipped over the edge really. And Gauguin writes an account of the ghastly night and it's aftermath. And it probably had something to do with Vincent receiving a letter from his brother Theo saying that Theo had got engaged to be married and Theo had been Vincent's absolute prop and stay. And he thought that he was losing his brother. Anyway, he pursued that evening he pursued Gauguin with an open razor. And Gauguin, looking around, was so frightened that in fact he went and stayed in a hotel for the night. And in the morning when he came back there was a great crowd around the house and there was a little man in a bowler hat who was the chief of police. And Gauguin said, what's happened? He said, oh, you know very well, Monsieur Gauguin, you have killed your friend. So Gauguin said, ah, you know, is Vincent dead? Let's go upstairs and have a look. And he says, he says I put my hand on his body and it was evidently warm, he was alive. I said to the chief of police, you know, please, I must go now. Gauguin must not see me when he wakes up, you know, I can't bear it. And he describes the yellow house full of blood stained towels. And then Gauguin left for Paris and of course poor Vincent was incarcerated in various mental asylums for the rest of his life. But it's very interesting. There are all these sort of conspiracy theories. You know, Gauguin cut off Vincent's Eyre, et cetera, which, you know, you need to look into. And of course, during that time, Vincent and Theo were writing numerous letters to each other practically daily, and Theo and Gauguin, and so on and so forth. And the first letter that Vincent writes is to Gauguin, and he says, you know, I have a feeling that I did something wrong. You know, there was too much electricity in me. You know, I couldn't control it. Anyway, he lives for another year. And all through that year, these letters are flying back and forth. Nobody ever blames Gauguin. Vincent takes responsibility for it. And then, of course, and actually he keeps writing to Gauguin saying, when are we going to paint together again? We're not going to paint together again. Gauguin's absolutely terrified he's never going to do that. But he lets Vincent down very gently, which is so nice. And actually, there's the most lovely postscript to this time with Vincent, which is that 10 years later, when Gauguin was living in Tahiti, he sent for sunflower seeds from Paris, and he planted them and he got them to flower, and he put them in a sort of basket on a chair and he painted them. And he said, the painting was in memory of my gentle friend Vincent. So there was much affection.
- [26:36]
Alison Stewart
That was Sue Prudho, author of Wild A Life of Paul Gauguin. If you'd like to see any of the images she mentions that are mentioned in her book, you can see them by going to our Instagram stories at all of it wnyc. Tomorrow we'll travel to Tahiti and we'll learn about Kogan's life. There's.