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Arearea by Gauguin
AreareaOil on canvas, 1892 Arearea (Joyousness), a highly decorative work painted in Tahiti at the end of 1892, contains the elements that characterize his work from this time: the absence of relief, simplification of volume and design, and a supposedly primitive intensity of color combining to evoke an atmosphere of the unknown. In 1891, Symbolism in Painting: Paul Gauguin, an article by Georges-Albert Aurier, was published in which he attempted to summarize the painter’s art under five headings: (1) ideist, as its one aim will be the expression of an idea; (2) symbolist, as it will express this idea with forms; (3) synthetic, as it will put down these signs and forms in a generally understandable manner; (4) subjective, because the object will never be considered merely as an object, but as the expression of an idea perceived by the subject; (5) decorative, because decorative painting, such as the Egyptians and also probably the Greeks and Primitives conceived it, is no other than a manifestation of art which is at one and the same time subjective, synthetic, symbolist and ideist’. The primitive aspect was of particular importance to Gauguin; he had found it to some extent in Brittany, but in an attempt to shake off what he saw as the evil effects of ‘civilization’ he sailed for Tahiti. Gauguin’s trip was subsidized by the French Minister of Fine Arts as a vague ‘artistic mission’. There, he believed, he gradually turned into a ‘savage’. While he was there a second article by Aurier appeared in which Gauguin was hailed as a leading Symbolist – ‘the uncontested initiator of this artistic movement’. Own An Original Re-Creation
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Hand-painted in oils by a professional artist
