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Lot Essay
A letter from Sylvie Crussard of the Wildenstein Institute, dated Paris, 3 March 2000 accompanies this watercolor monotype, which will be included in the forthcoming Gauguin catalogue raisonné.
*This lot may be exempt from sales tax as set forth in the Sales Tax notice at the back of the catalogue.
The subject of Oviri first appears in Gauguin's work in Noa Noa, the artist's illustrated journal from his first trip to Tahiti, as the name of a melancholy song which the artist translated. The word, which means "savage" or "wild," is also the name of the Tahitian deity of death and mourning. She appears here, clutching a wolf cub to her side, a symbol of her wild power. In 1894 Gauguin also executed a large stoneware sculpture of the fierce goddess (coll. Musée d'Orsay, Paris). William Rubin has noted that it is possible that one of the figures in Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907; coll. Museum of Modern Art, New York) is based on this sculpture (Primitivism in 20th-Century Art, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1984, pp. 245-246). Further variations on this theme also include another watercolor monotype (Field, no. 31), two woodcuts (Guérin 48 and 49), and two oils, E Haere oe i hia (Where are you going) (1892, coll. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart) and Rave te hiti ramu (The Idol) (1898; coll. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg).
Gauguin also titled his plaster self-portrait of 1894-1895 "Oviri." The word appears to encompass the artist's own attraction to the wild and "uncivilized" world in which he found himself in voluntary exile and which he had enthusiastically embraced. Indeed, Gauguin's fascination with the savage state perhaps suggests a desire on his part to reconnect with primitive society and leave behind the "evils" of western civilization as he saw them. In 1903 he wrote to Charles Morice:
"You were wrong that day when you said I was wrong to say I was a savage. It's true enough: I am a savage. And civilized people sense the fact. In my work there is nothing that can surprise or disconcert, except the fact that I am a savage in spite of myself. That's also why my work is inimitable" (quoted in exh. cat., Washington D.C., op. cit. p. 371).
Early in May 1894, Gauguin returned to Brittany from Tahiti, hoping to renew his contact with the area which had been seminal to the development of his early painting and sculpture. During this period he created his first watercolor monotypes on Tahitian themes. These subtle works, with their hazy otherworldly quality, represent, according to Richard Field, a reaction by Gauguin against what he felt were overly decorative tendencies emerging in his own art and that of others. Notable in these works is the deliberate introduction of lack of clarity, which Gauguin first attempted in Noa Noa.
Gauguin seemed partial to Japan paper for the manner in which it absorbed the diluted pigments. Many of the 1894 monotypes were mounted by the artist on gray cardboard for an exhibition he held at his studio in December of that year. Julien Leclercq, in his review of this exhibition, described Gauguin's experiments with monotype:
"By a process of printing with water, he imparts to the watercolor the gravity, sumptuosity and depth which are for him, no matter what subject he chooses, the necessary condition of art. In these studies, as in his woodcuts, he is not concerned with inventing new compositions; he has simply transposed into another medium motifs from his Tahitian works" (quoted in R. S. Field, exh. cat., Philidelphia, op. cit., pp. 16-17).
*This lot may be exempt from sales tax as set forth in the Sales Tax notice at the back of the catalogue.
The subject of Oviri first appears in Gauguin's work in Noa Noa, the artist's illustrated journal from his first trip to Tahiti, as the name of a melancholy song which the artist translated. The word, which means "savage" or "wild," is also the name of the Tahitian deity of death and mourning. She appears here, clutching a wolf cub to her side, a symbol of her wild power. In 1894 Gauguin also executed a large stoneware sculpture of the fierce goddess (coll. Musée d'Orsay, Paris). William Rubin has noted that it is possible that one of the figures in Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907; coll. Museum of Modern Art, New York) is based on this sculpture (Primitivism in 20th-Century Art, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1984, pp. 245-246). Further variations on this theme also include another watercolor monotype (Field, no. 31), two woodcuts (Guérin 48 and 49), and two oils, E Haere oe i hia (Where are you going) (1892, coll. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart) and Rave te hiti ramu (The Idol) (1898; coll. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg).
Gauguin also titled his plaster self-portrait of 1894-1895 "Oviri." The word appears to encompass the artist's own attraction to the wild and "uncivilized" world in which he found himself in voluntary exile and which he had enthusiastically embraced. Indeed, Gauguin's fascination with the savage state perhaps suggests a desire on his part to reconnect with primitive society and leave behind the "evils" of western civilization as he saw them. In 1903 he wrote to Charles Morice:
"You were wrong that day when you said I was wrong to say I was a savage. It's true enough: I am a savage. And civilized people sense the fact. In my work there is nothing that can surprise or disconcert, except the fact that I am a savage in spite of myself. That's also why my work is inimitable" (quoted in exh. cat., Washington D.C., op. cit. p. 371).
Early in May 1894, Gauguin returned to Brittany from Tahiti, hoping to renew his contact with the area which had been seminal to the development of his early painting and sculpture. During this period he created his first watercolor monotypes on Tahitian themes. These subtle works, with their hazy otherworldly quality, represent, according to Richard Field, a reaction by Gauguin against what he felt were overly decorative tendencies emerging in his own art and that of others. Notable in these works is the deliberate introduction of lack of clarity, which Gauguin first attempted in Noa Noa.
Gauguin seemed partial to Japan paper for the manner in which it absorbed the diluted pigments. Many of the 1894 monotypes were mounted by the artist on gray cardboard for an exhibition he held at his studio in December of that year. Julien Leclercq, in his review of this exhibition, described Gauguin's experiments with monotype:
"By a process of printing with water, he imparts to the watercolor the gravity, sumptuosity and depth which are for him, no matter what subject he chooses, the necessary condition of art. In these studies, as in his woodcuts, he is not concerned with inventing new compositions; he has simply transposed into another medium motifs from his Tahitian works" (quoted in R. S. Field, exh. cat., Philidelphia, op. cit., pp. 16-17).