Includes bibliographical references (pages [279]-297) and index.
Contents:
10. Re-possessing Gauguin: material histories and the contemporary Pacific / Heather Waldroup. Part I. Constructing multiple identities. 1. Gauguin's alter egos: writing the other and the self / Linda Goddard -- 2. Paul Gauguin's self-portraits in Polynesia: androgyny and ambivalence / Irina Stotland -- 3. Flora Tristan's grandson: reconsidering the feminist critique of Paul Gauguin / Norma Broude -- Part II. Symbolism, science, and spirituality. 4. Gauguin and the challenge of ambiguity / dario Gamboni -- 5. On not seeing Tahiti: Gauguin's Noa Noa and the rhetoric of blindness / Alastair Wright -- 6. Evolution and desire in Gauguin's Tahitian eve / Martha Lucy -- 7. gauguin: vitalist, hypnotist / Barbara Larson -- 8. "All men could be Buddhas": Paul Gauguin's Marquesan diptych / June E. Hargrove -- Part III. Reception: resistance and empowerment. 9. Taking back Teha'amana: feminist interventions in Gauguin's legacy / elizabeth C. Childs -- 10. Re-possessing Gauguin: material histories and the contemporary Pacific / Heather Waldroup.
Summary:
Several decades have now passed since postcolonial and feminist critiques presented the art-historical world with a demythologized Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), a much-diminished image of the artist/hero who had once been universally admired as "the father of modernist primitivism." In this volume, both long-established and more recent Gauguin scholars offer a provocative picture of the evolution of Gauguin scholarship in the recent postmodern era, as they confront and consider how the dismantling of the longstanding Gauguin myth positions us now in the 21st century to deal with and assess the life, work, and legacy of this still perennially popular artist. To reassess the challenges that Gauguin faced in his own day as well as those that he continues to present to current and future scholarship, they explore the multiple contexts that influenced Gauguin's thought and behavior as well as his art and incorporate a variety of interdisciplinary approaches, from anthropology, philosophy, and the history of science to gender studies and the study of Pacific cultural history. Dealing with a wide range of Gauguin's production, they challenge conventional art-historical thinking, highlight transnational perspectives, and offer clues to the direction of future scholarship, as audiences worldwide seek to make multicultural peace with Gauguin and his art. Broude has raised the bar of Gauguin scholarship ever higher in this groundbreaking volume, which will be necessary reading for students and scholars of art history, late 19th-century French and Pacific culture, gender studies, and beyond.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.