Gauguin: Faust, Fraud or Both?
Was Gauguin’s Tahitian venture a Faust-like journey, an art scam or both?
By Daniel Gauss
When Paul Gauguin reached Tahiti in 1891, to become the ‘noble savage’ he always felt he was destined to become (he boasted of having Peruvian blood as proof of his innate primitivism), he found that it had already been transformed into a French colonial outpost. The native inhabitants worshiped in Christian churches, they picked fruit for French companies and they even wore clothing that had been imported from France. Yes, they wore clothing: nary a naked woman was to be found basking among the lush surroundings. He had been too poor to obtain transport to any place French shipping did not go to and was now stuck in a French backwater instead of a pristine paradise.
No matter. He wrote back home to declare he was now shedding his European biases and culture and living the life of a native. He then began creating paintings falsely reflecting what life on the island was like. He went out seeking ‘noble savage’ subject matter and that is exactly what he was going to produce. As Wagner wished to remove his art from a tradition of Christian allegories and morality and reposition it in Nordic mythology and traditions, Gauguin wanted to part ways with a European Christianity that had lost so much of its…
