Paul gauguin's masterpiece.

Gauguin exhibited a completely original painting "Naked Workbook" at the independent painter exhibition in 188 1 year. A critic wrote in an article commenting on this exhibition: "This painting shows the indisputable temperament of a contemporary painter. Of all the contemporary painters who have painted nudes, no one can express life so powerfully ... lifelike ... this whole body, this slightly bulging abdomen hanging on the legs and thighs, is so real. "

Looking at this painting today, we can see that the structure of this image conforms to the concept of light and shade of pissarro Impressionism. However, there are obvious realistic tones (such as human wrinkles and back deformation), and the contrast between light and dark tones is stronger; You can also see a sketch that is not very clever, and there are some incongruities. These unconventional performances, on the one hand, illustrate Gauguin's realistic tendency, but on the other hand, hinder the overall unity. Naked colors are rose and green, with dark blue shadows; Underwear is pink and sky blue; The interlining on the right side of the human body is green and blue; Hair is blue and black; The wall is purple; The guitar hanging on the wall is black and yellow; Tapestries are yellow, white, blue and red stripes. The texture of guitar and tapestry is perfect; The rest is not very accurate. The colors are bold and strong, but the details are more successful than the whole. In a word, the author of this work is a bold colorist who doesn't pay much attention to hue, a sketch artist who lacks confidence in his own scheme, and an artist who has little vitality and is more controversial than inspired.

The swineherd in Brittany

1888 The picture "Pig in Brittany" was painted with a black border. These planes are opposite to each other in order to show a sense of space without relying on the middle tone. Some colors are painted casually, which can't reflect the reality: the Woods are purple, orange and red, the mountains are purple-brown, the stones are pink-blue, the houses are white and blue, the pigs are yellow, and the children with pigs are dressed in blue and purple. In a word, the whole painting is unified in shape and color. Its independence has reached such a level that in order to create an object with independent life-artistic life, the artist's vision will not conform to the realistic vision and will be abstracted from the latter. Some small details are still very impressionist, but the overall style of the picture is another kind, that is, based on new theories; Gauguin will develop this style and stick to it until death do us part.

He called this style "glaze school" and "comprehensive method". In fact, the color here is as flat as cloisonne. This is the first step towards a plane image instead of expressing the relationship between space and volume like Cezanne, avoiding realistic depiction and focusing on artistic objects.

Jacob fights with angels.

Jacob Fighting with Angels, The Yellow Christ and Beautiful Enchila fully and vividly illustrate Gauguin's symbolism scope and characteristics. The first two paintings depict religious themes-which are rare in Gauguin's works.

"Jacob and Angels Fight" seems to be a Christian theme. In fact, the painter is characterized by symbolism and depicts the illusion of the peasant woman in Brittany when the parish priest explains the doctrine. Painting is an illusion in people's minds, and painting is expressed in a realistic way, so the characters painted are not Christian images. The strange hats worn by Brittany peasant women enhance the decorative effect of the picture, while the "fighting" scenes in religious legends are treated in less obvious places to symbolize the illusions reflected in the hearts of these devout Brittany peasant women. Appreciate this picture carefully: a horizontally cut trunk is divided into two pictures. A man with wings (obviously an angel) is fighting another man (Jacob), which is a space in the picture; At close range, three oversized white hats cover another space. Three white hats are the backs of two Brittany peasant women, plus a silhouette, which is very strong against the dark dress, and they constitute a space; On their left, a row of kneeling women gradually narrowed according to the perspective. There is a naughty cow under the trunk. Although small, its distance has nothing to do with the distance of the angel fighting Jacob, so it is the third space. In this way, the overall flat-coated large-area space has three levels, that is, it is conceived by the coexistence of three perspective systems. Therefore, it is an immaterial space that depends on both color and structure.

This theme puzzled his paintings. The red, blue, black and white pictures here are patterns, and the lines are curved and undulating, similar to Byzantine mosaics. Because of the complexity of content and form, Gauguin's artistic style is complicated, so historians call it a kind of holism. Gauguin's style later influenced Nabi and Fauvism in France.

The Yellow Christ

The oil painting "The Yellow Christ" embodies Gauguin's "comprehensive" painting style with its flat surface, strong colors, bold outline and simple modeling. The whole picture is supported by the characters in the foreground, the vertical pillars of the cross and the horizontal bars at the top. The stripes of fields, skies and crosses are in sharp contrast to the curves of women and trees. The shape extending straight is in sharp contrast to the circular closed shape. All objects are unified in a bright and simple figure. Although colorful, it shows the natural simplicity of Britten's scenery; Although the female image is elegant, the temperament of her cultivator is clear at a glance.

In painting, the unified color plane and lines around the image reflect Gauguin's deliberate pursuit of simplicity, which is in sharp contrast with the impressionist painting style. This painting reflects the painter's careful observation of the painted object: the peasant woman's clothing style is very accurate, the light in the picture is Brittany's unique cold light, and the field reveals the harmony of green, black and yellow. In addition, the drawing of the cross also refers to the colored wooden crucifix of Jesus in a church near Awang Bridge. However, the painter has gone beyond naturalistic observation and pursued emotional expression here. He wrote in his diary: "Impressionists are not free to study colors blindly ... they only pay attention to their own eyes, but are indifferent to the mysterious core of their own thoughts, thus falling into a situation of scientific reasoning." The expression of "the mysterious core of thought" is precisely Gauguin's goal. Although he is not a farmer at all, he wants to use his paintings to convey the "simplicity and innocence with strong local flavor and superstition" he found in Britten people. Therefore, he simplified the composition, made the space flat, at the same time, made the outline thicker and strengthened the color concentration. His aim is to make the picture not just a record made by an objective observer, but an intuitive symbol of simple and pious religious beliefs.

Beautiful burrito

In the painting "Beautiful Enchila" (Figure 5), we see another state of mind. This is a portrait of a beautiful woman. In this portrait, the painter accurately modified her shape-face, hands and clothes according to the requirements of color structure. Rose, green and light blue are set off by the image itself and the blue and red on the background; The golden yellow and orange yellow on the statue of Bodhisattva make these colors more diverse. Therefore, the modeling here is based on the curved surface, which allows viewers to better appreciate those areas with solid colors. However, although painters are interested in the portrait itself, they are not limited to painting ordinary portraits; In order to give the portrait supernatural color, he put the portrait in an imaginary circle; On the left side of the painting, he installed a vague Buddha statue, suggesting that the portrait itself gives people the same impression as this idol, and also shows the painter's respect for oriental mysticism. All this has no rational value, but even today, many years later, the artist's fantasy still confuses the viewer with its color power and (if it can be said) its vivid modeling performance of mysterious things. Malarme said that Gauguin's words can be used in this painting: "It's amazing that so many mysterious things can be accommodated in such a unique form."

Young girls in Tahiti

189 1 year, Gauguin's portrait Girl in Tahiti is a real masterpiece. He loves the rude but healthy beauty of Tahiti women, his naive and straightforward personality, and he appreciates the hot and rich colors on their skin. He is so fascinated by his models that he can't sacrifice them for his own synthesis. So he describes the object comprehensively, but never comprehensively. There is no abstract factor in the image, and every line and tone is full of praise and joy. Gauguin's desperate and sad tone has completely disappeared in this painting. He regained peace, humanity and happiness in the forest far from civilization and the capital Barbier. In joy, he found the accurate contrast between light and shade and the stable color harmony, instead of the crazy color harmony before. Brown skin, blue-black hair and blue-purple clothes (separated by a few pieces of rose and white) are displayed in front of a bright background, the upper part of which is orange, the lower part is red, and some green leaves are scattered. Even some defects in structure, proportion, volume and light expression have become valuable things, because they reflect the freshness and vividness of expression and the unrestrained creation of artists. Gauguin later created some beautiful works like this, but better works never appeared again.

Wandering soul

Gauguin thinks the painting "Wandering Soul" is one of his excellent works. The basis of this painting is also direct life experience. Gauguin once left his cabin in the forest for Barbier and didn't come back until late at night. "Still, naked Thai gula straight on the bed. She stared at me with wide eyes in fear, as if she didn't recognize me ... Taigula's fear infected me, too. I feel as if there is a phosphorescence in her eyes. I have never seen her so beautiful before; Her beauty has never been so touching. The yellow of the sheets connects the purple background with the orange body and the blue bedspread. In front of our eyes, it is a sudden brilliance and harmony, which makes people feel as if it is the kind of phosphorescence that is regarded as a lonely ghost by Maori tribes. Unfortunately, Gauguin followed the principle of symbolism, which attracted the ghost image in his paintings. This image is very incongruous here. Can only weaken the effect of color expression. "The birth history of this painting is written for those who always want to know why and why. In fact, this is just the work of a naked woman by the sea. " The nudity in this painting itself is very realistic, so the less natural and bizarre it is, the more prominent it is than those symbolic and decorative factors. Gauguin finally developed a critical consciousness after sacrificing the real theme for his symbolism, and realized that in the final analysis, the most important thing for him (not for others) was a nude movement shrouded in superstition and fear.

"Where are we from? Who Are We? Where are we going? 》

1February, 897, Gauguin completed the biggest oil painting in his creative career: "Where did we come from? Who Are We? Where are we going? ”。 In his words, this painting "is more meaningful than all previous works;" I can't draw a better picture of the same value. Before I die, I put all my energy into this painting. How much sadness I have experienced in various terrible environments, how real and uncorrected my eyes are here, so that all the rash and hasty traces are gone. What they see is life itself ... For a whole month, I have been in an unspeakable madness, painting this picture day and night ... Although it is in the middle tone, the whole landscape is completely stable blue and Verona-style green. All the nudes stand out in front of the landscape in bright orange. "In the harsh environment, it is depicted with painful enthusiasm and clear illusion, so the picture looks no signs of impatience, but full of life. There are no models, no painting skills, and no so-called painting rules. The color of the picture is pure and mysterious, and the plane technique makes it rich in oriental decoration and romantic atmosphere. In the mottled and gorgeous, dreamlike picture, the painter's philosophical inquiry about the meaning of life is hidden.

The baby in this painting symbolizes the birth of mankind, and the fruit picking in the middle means that Adam picked the fruit of wisdom to contain the survival and development of mankind, and then the old man. The whole image symbolizes the fate of human beings from birth to death, and draws a trilogy of life. Other images in the painting also symbolize the artist's social and religious ideals, which are quite mysterious and interesting. This painting is a synthesis of Gauguin's life thought and his impression of Tahiti life, and it is an epitaph he dedicated to himself.

As we all know, any work of art is a translocation of theoretical field extracted from realistic impression; Therefore, works of art are both abstract and concrete. The difference between Gauguin and impressionist painters lies in the great role of abstraction related to reality in his creation. At least we can see that this is not only the characteristic of Gauguin, but also in the works of Cezanne and Seurat. What makes Gauguin unique is his abstract characteristics: his pure color, his comprehensive method, the decoration of lines, and his lack of depth (the third degree), which were named symbolism (synthesis) by himself and writers, and also left an immortal memory for Gauguin's life-long creation.

We worship Maria.

"We worship Mary" is what he wrote "Where do we come from? Who Are We? Where are we going? Conceptual works before painting. Tahitian women who pick fruits in the wild often hold mysterious prayers there. The composition of this painting is actually a combination of religious artistic conception and reality. On the left, the mother with her child on her shoulder is wearing a bright red Tapa skirt, similar to a portrait painted on the spot. On the right are several half-naked women praying to God, which are the band reliefs of the temple in Java. Under the sunlight, it presents a primitive divinity. The color of the background is so mottled and gorgeous, everything has no perspective, and the color and shape are flat and decorative. It has no profound meaning and is not worthy of the viewer's attention. It is mysterious because the image in the income painting is a comprehensive hint.