This is the image that has put me in my happy place
today. It is Paul Gauguin's Vase in the Form of Leda and
the Swan, 1887–1888.
And some lucky devil has it in their "Private collection" but
was generous enough to share it with the public through exhibition at the Art
Institute of Chicago. Through my
20+-year involvement as a curator and a writer in the ceramics world, I have
had many very satisfying opportunities to consider the relationship of surface
and form. It is an inexhaustible
topic to me.
This image of Gaugin's work delighted me for several
reasons but chief among them was the discovery that he worked in ceramics. Like most everyone, I thought of Gaugin
as a post impressionist painter who worked primarily in two-dimensions. Luckily for those us in the
art-consuming world, Gaugin's career as a stockbroker was short lived and he
took up art full time. But it was
art in all its varied forms that intrigued him as Shannon Moore quotes the
artist in her article in the National Gallery's e-zine,
…Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) was in fact an accomplished
sculptor, ceramist, printmaker and decorator. A new exhibition at the Art
Institute of Chicago (AIC) aims to celebrate these varied talents, revealing
Gauguin’s identity as an artist-artisan, well versed in forging innovative new
methods. “It’s precisely an
endless kind of art that I’m interested in,” Gauguin explained in 1903, “rich
in all sorts of techniques, suitable for translating all the emotions of nature
and humanity.” https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/exhibitions/revealing-the-artists-hand-gauguin-at-the-aic?utm_source=
The detail image of the vase shows a profound understanding
on the part of Gaugin. The way the
head is tipped down has an intimacy but the way the gaze is directed at the
viewer is almost coy. The way the
female form is integrated with the swan-vase speaks volumes and the way it ties
in with its subject matter of Leda and the Swan and its tale of seduction is
masterful. Gaugin has used the
3-dimensionality of his media masterfully.
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| Look at the red-eyed demon looking at you. |
What made me burst out loud laughing is that I found myself
wondering, "what if Gaugin in his artistic wanderings had become a tattoo
artist?" Afterall, he did
spend his post-stockbroker years in Hiva Ova, Tahiti, and Martinique. And the indigenous cultures there
informed Gauguin's embrace of colour, nature, and an interest in physical form.
Now, I recognize that one of the reasons why my mind is
gravitating to these thoughts is because later on this week I will speaking on
the tattoo suite of portraits by photographer Ned Pratt. Tattooing has to deal with the human
body, especially its 3-d aspects.
But also on a visual level one of the intriguing twists that Ned
occasionally inserted into the process is that the tattoo looks at the viewer. The subject is seen from the back or in
profile. The gaze determines the
relationship. And that is another
inexhaustible topic.
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| Notice how the lady tattoo on the neck is looking at you. |
