Gauguin's Challenge: New Perspectives After Postmodernism

Description

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.

Norma Broude is Professor Emerita of Art History at American University, USA. A pioneering feminist scholar and specialist in 19th-century French and Italian painting, Broude is known for critical reassessments of Impressionism and the work of Gauguin, Degas, Caillebotte, Cassatt, Seurat, and the Italian Macchiaioli. She is also co-editor of four influential texts on feminist art history.

Gauguin's Challenge is a rich survey of recent scholarship that admirably shows this artist's relevance for our politically fraught present. * H-France * [Provides] fresh perspectives in Gauguin studies. * French Studies * I didn't think it could be done: A new collection of essays about Gauguin that contains original research and new conclusions. And important ones too, about gender, sex, vision, religion, power, identity and colonialism. This is a Gauguin for the 21st century! * Stephen F. Eisenman, Professor of Art History, Northwestern University, USA * Because he lived his own romantic myth, we inherit a Gauguin as notorious as he is renowned. Our current histories of modernism slight him in favor of Cezanne, Monet, and Van Gogh, whose positions are easier to define. But no one grasped the stakes of modernist practice better than Gauguin did-even as its attitudes and forms were only just emerging. This collection of new analyses and assessments by noted scholars acknowledges the full complexity of Gauguin and his world, spurred by issues that concern our society now, which we discern in him as well. The topics addressed range from otherness, to androgyny, to feminism, to pictorial ambiguity, to vitalism, to sexuality, to religiosity. Because the central figure in each study is Gauguin-the same artist, yet not the 'same' object-the various interpretations intersect from chapter to chapter, making this book fascinating as a historical document in itself. * Richard Shiff, Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art, University of Texas at Austin, USA * The diversity of scholarly voices assembled by Norma Broude in Gauguin's Challenge provides a rich variety of perspectives on the artist's disputed colonialist imagery of the exotic French Polynesia of the 1890s. Just as Gauguin's postimpressionist art challenged the aesthetic, political, racial, and sexual standards of his day, so does his beautiful and disturbing art remain a challenge for us to face up to its complexities and contradictions. This passionate volume shows how productive the unfinished conversation on Gauguin can still be for artists, professors, students, and the general public. * Steven Z. Levine, Leslie Clark Professor in the Humanities, Bryn Mawr College, USA * Gauguin's Challenge is a must-read for anyone interested in delving more deeply into the question asked by Norma Broude in her introduction to the book: "How do we or should we now understand Gauguin?" As the title cleverly underscores, the challenge is twofold: both ours and the artist's. From the viewpoint of recent generations, Gauguin was an exploitative colonizer and victimizer, but the essays in this volume complicate that picture. Contributions by internationally recognized Gauguin experts including Norma Broude, Elizabeth Childs, Dario Gamboni, Linda Goddard, June Hargrove and Alastair Wright, as well as scholars in the richly interdisciplinary field of Pacific Studies, provide fresh and important perspectives from which to reconsider his life and art. An ambivalent participant in France's Catholic traditions and categories, Gauguin here comes across as an even more complex personality, as much victim as victimizer, whose production as artist, craftsman, printmaker, feminist (yes, feminist!), and writer is decidedly worthy of the balanced insights and deep analysis these essays offer. * Gloria Groom, Chair of European Painting and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, USA * With Gauguin's Challenge Norma Broude succeeds in presenting a collection of insightful articles by diverse authors who analyze Gauguin's art and writing. Reassessing both the artist's work and historic persona beyond pioneering postcolonial and feminist critiques, this book contributes masterfully to advancing Gauguin studies. * Ruth E. Iskin, Professor of Modern Art, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel * [Norma] Broude's book is an important bookend to an era of art history. It leads us to a new approach that will encourage us to listen to the voices of indigenous peoples as they share with us their history, beliefs, and observations about Paul Gauguin's work. * caa.reviews *