Parau Api – What News

Parau Api – What News

Upon his arrival in Tahiti, Paul Gauguin believed he had found the uncivilized paradise he had actually longed for much of his creative career. A search which had actually led him to leave Europe, disheartened by what he viewed as a staleness in the civilized art community, which he felt was triggered by an overstated fixation with cash and wealth.

From that very first imaginative motivation came the majority of the famous works in the artist’s early career, much of which, if put side by side, appear to have actually been studied for each other, with many of the very same aspects, characters, and compositions duplicating frequently.

This oil on canvas, likewise called 2 Women of Tahiti, is a fine example of that innovative incentive, as it was ended up in 1982, a mere year after Gauguin’s arrival in the Polynesian islands. A mere year before, just after his arrival, Gauguin had actually produced a painting of remarkable resemblance, named Two Women on the Beach, which is perhaps in some way more popular. While this piece remains in belongings of the Galerie Neue Meister, which belongs to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen collection of Dresden, Germany, while its twin remains in possession of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

The similarities between the paintings could lead one to puzzle them, and they are typically confused by ordinary critics, who tend to misname one or the other. The subject matter, of 2 Tahitian ladies sitting together, is the same, as are the expressions on their faces, which speak of a mix of disinterest and coyness, purposefully preventing the look of the painter. The lady on the left-hand side is the same on both paintings, wearing a red skirt embellished with white flowers, her face turned away from the observer, her eyes closed, nearly as if she did not want to be part of this.

The lady on the right-hand side is the main difference in between the paintings, for a while in the first work she wears reasonable Christian objective clothing, here she uses a more ethnically appropriate floral sarong hanging from her left shoulder. She does not seem a ready participant of the painting neither, and although she is turned towards the observer, her eyes avoid those of the artist, as she seems to avert at absolutely nothing particular.

The main concern raised here is, then, about what led Gauguin to make that modification, and how that reflects his views of the Tahitian individuals.