STRANGE GENIUS OF TAHITI

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 169, 7 October 1927, Page 12

STRANGE GENIUS OF TAHITI

French artistic circles have been stirred of late by th« discovery on the wall of an inn Hi Brittany of several unknown masterpieces of Paul Gauguin, that -extraordinary Frenchman who eventually found an unknown grave in the Marquesas. For nearly 40 years a fine “primitive” of Joan of Arc has been obscured by layers of wallpapers in the little inn of Marie Henri in the village of Pouldu on the bleakest part of the Brittany coast. Gauguin collectors for many years have combed the world. His work, once unsaleable, now brings tremendous prices. Even minor pictures from the hand of the master are eagerly bidden for. A small canvas, entitled “The Violoncelliste,” was sold quite recently at the Hotel Drouot, the great auction mart of Paris, for 61,000 francs.

To miss a motor-bus, and while awaiting the next, to find on the wall of an inn once frequented by Gauguin one of his acknowledged masterpieces, was the experience of a young American tourist within the last few months. JOAN OF ARC

Joan of Arc, it will be recalled, was once a goosegirl. So the small decorative panel of a goose found near Gauguin's “Joan,” pronounced by Parisian art authorities to be one of the greatest of modern paintings, is quite in keeping with the symbolism of the larger work. The “primitive Joan” is four feet three inches by two feet in size. The goose panel is two feet three inches by one foot eight inches. Occupying the centre of the room was a painting by De Han, a contemporary and friend of Gauguin. The pictures were transported to Paris, where they were placed in the hands of a skilled restorer. Despite the neglect of years, and the paste of the wallpaper, after two months’ work, he succeeded in presenting them in their pristine appearance. It appears that Gauguin spent some time at Pouldu during one of his periodical bouts with poverty. So strong was his creative urge that occasionally on wet days he prepared the brick wall of the Marie Henri and upon it painted his fresco of Joan of Arc as he conceived she would appear in the inner mind of a Breton peasant. Beneath it he wrote; “All art executed for money alone is without value.’’ The quotation is, of course, Wagner's, whom Gauguin greatly admired. The life of the painter in the South Seas is fairly well known. Gauguin was the inspiration of Somerset Maugham's “Moon and Sixpence.” We all know through the medium of his “Noa Noa” of his liaison with the gentle-eyed Tehura, one of his several Tahitian mistresses. And we all know of the last and saddest phase of all —a genius regarded as an outcast, a fool or a madman, bitter and estranged, waging an senseless war against the whole French colonial administration. Some of his best work, nevertheless, was painted toward the end of his life in the Marquesas, where he died on May 6, 1904. The weird “Contes Barbares,” with the native girls, ripemouthed and round of breast, their beautiful bodies strangely transparent and white, and the mystical European figure dominating the background, is considered by pritics to be the final summit of expression In the art of

Paul Gauguin. It was painted only two years before his death. There is an excellent reproduction of this famous picture in a little French cafe in Sydney. The aged patronne of the “Chanticlere” will tell you, as she sips her black coffee, of the strange life of her famous countryman. Robert Keable occupied the Tahiti home of Gauguin. In a letter a year or so ago he told me how Papeete officialdom collected the carvings in the house and burnt them after the death of the painter. One of Gauguin’s last acts, it will be recalled, was to erect a naughty effigy of the French bishop, in his Marquesan garden. Keable also told me that among Gauguin's possessions was found a small painting of a snow-clad Brittany village, one of the last works upon which he was engaged, when surrounded by tropical vegetation, enfeebled by disease, and embittered by man, he died. AN UNKNOWN GRAVE Keable, who is still in Tahiti, is acquainted with one of the painter’s “vaihines.” There is also a half-caste son somewhere on the island, who apparently, has inherited none of his father’s characteristics. Gauguin’s grave has been lost. Unmarked when the painter was buried; now none can find it. At the base of a statue in his Hiva,Hiva garden were engraved these words taken from the verse of Morice. Gauguin’s friend, in “Noa Noa”: Tho gods are dead and Tahiti dies of their death. The sun which once lit the isles with flame , now sleeps A sorrowful sleep, with brief dream awakenings ; Now the shadow of regret pierces the eye of Eve. Who pensively smiles, gazing upon her breast Sterile gold, sealed by some divine design. ERIC RAMSDEN. BOOKS IN DEMAND AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY FICTION “KIM” bn Rudyard Kipling. “MASTER WHERE HE "Wlinin' bg .1. St. .John Adcock. “A BISHOP OUT OF RESIDENCE” by V. /.. Wliitechurch. “THE TIME OF MAN” bg E. M. Roberts. "GOOD HUNTING” bg Norman Dave;/. “OVER BEMERTONS” by E. V. Ducas. “PEG WOFFINGTON” bg Charles Reade. “INTERFERENCE” by R. Pertwee. “BARREN LEAVES” bg Aldous Huxley. “THE GREEN MIRROR ” bg Hugh Walpole. NON-FICTION "THE LAND” by V. Sackville-West. “SCIENCE AND HUMAN PROGRESS” by Sir Oliver Lodge. “OIL IMPERIALISM” by Louis Fischer. “FIFTY THOUSAND MILES OF SUN” by R. 8. Liddell. "CONFESSIONS O FA DEALER” by T. Rohan, "TWO PLAYS” by Scan O'Casey. “BLUE WATER” by A. S. Hildebrand. "MELODIES AND MEMORIES” by Nellie Melba. "ROMANCE OF EXCAVATION” by David Masters. " SHAKESPEARE. HIS MIND AND ART” bg Edward Doicdcn.

SOUTHERN EXCHANGES Fress Associatian. Christchurch.—Reported: English, Scottish and Australian Bank, «£7 10s. On ’Changej Dalgety and Co., £l3 is 6d,