Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
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Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)

Ondine (II)

Details
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Ondine (II)
signed and dated 'P Gauguin 89' (upper right), signed and dated again 'P Gauguin 89' (lower right)
pastel and gouache on paper laid down on panel
7 1/8 x 19 in. (18 x 48.2 cm.)
Executed in Brittany, 1889
Provenance
Horacio Echeverrieta.
Mme. Lloberas y Millastre (by descent from the above); sale, Sotheby's, London, 6 July 1960, lot 156.
O'Hana Gallery, London (acquired at the above sale).
Galerie Motte, Geneva.
Mrs. A.E. Goldberg, London (acquired from the above, October 1960); sale, Christie's, London, 2 December 1986, lot 123.
Acquired at the above sale.
Literature
G. Wildenstein, Gauguin, Paris, 1964, p. 130, no. 337 (illustrated).
B. Thomson, Gauguin by Himself, London, 1998, p. 139, no. 103.
Exhibited
Paris, Grand Palais, The Art of Paul Gauguin, January-April 1989, p. 148, no. 81 (illustrated in color, p. 159).
Tokyo, Bunkamura Museum of Modern Art; Kyoto, National Museum of Modern Art; Hokkaido, Museum of Modern Art; Mie, Prefectural Art Museum; and Koriyama, City Museum of Art, Gauguin and the School of Pont-Aven, April-November 1993, no. 93 (illustrated).
Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gauguin and the School of Pont-Aven, May-July 1994, no. 13 (illustrated).
Künzelsau, Museum Würth, Gauguin und die Schule von Pont-Aven, March-June 1997, p. 159, no. 13 (illustrated, p. 71).
Special notice
On occasion, Christie’s has a direct financial interest in lots consigned for sale. This interest may include guaranteeing a minimum price to the consignor which is secured solely by consigned property. This is such a lot.

Lot Essay

Ondine (II), a vibrant work in pastel and gouache, reflects a significant moment in Gauguin's career. Related to the oil painting (Wildenstein 336) of the same title now in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ondine (II) was likely begun as a preparatory drawing for the oil, and was subsequently revisited by the artist, who completed it as a work of art in its own right.

In Ondine (II), Gauguin sought to develop a personal decorative aesthetic through velvety, vibrant pastel tones and compositional abstraction of space and form. In Ondine (II), Gauguin is able to "achieve rich color effects" through his use of pastel and gouache in a new and innovative elongated format (V. Jirat-Wasiutynski, Technique and Meaning in the Paintings of Paul Gauguin, Cambridge, 2000, p. 150). While the treatment of the media is indicative of Gauguin's specific aesthetic aims, the subject of this work, the female nude, signifies a moment in Gauguin's career in which he sought to explore the symbolic potency of the female form.

Gauguin painted his first nude in 1880, Etude de nu, Suzanne Cousant (Wildenstein 39; Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen), and did not return to the subject again until 1887, just shortly before he painted the present work. The dramatic depiction of Ondine is indicative of Gauguin's growing affinity towards Symbolism and signals a shift from depicting traditional spatial relationships in painting to exploring the potential of abstract imagery and deliberately cropped planes. Gauguin likely cropped the present work to its present state to create greater spatial tension as the female nude falls into the breaking surf of a wave. The contoured outline of the upper torso and head of the woman delineates her sensuous figure from the vivid green of the ocean. Though the left arm is cropped, both arms are distinctly extended away from her body in an agitated gesture as she falls toward the waves. Her right hand, dramatically raised to her mouth, stifles a cry. With "her sexuality offered to the waves", the female, no longer the object of the male voyeur, flings herself into a dramatic embrace with nature (ibid., p. 142).

Throughout the 1880s, Gauguin's treatment of pastel reflected the Impressionist's use of cross-hatching and striking color contrasts to capture the dynamic effect of light. After witnessing Degas' profound treatment of the pastel medium at an early 1889 exhibition in Montmartre, Gauguin's interest in pastel was revitalized. This renewed attraction to the velvety and rich aesthetic quality of pastel is fundamental to the creation of Ondine (II) and especially evident in the intense cross-hatching in the right forearm of the figure. Executed on yellow wove paper, Ondine was reworked from an initial drawing with numerous applications of pastel and gouache to achieve a heavily layered satin, vibrant surface. Gauguin's artistic vigor contributed much to the visual potency of the image, "By juxtaposing electric reds and blues, contrasting warm light and cool shadow, he transformed the silhouette into a vibrant figure" (ibid., p. 153).

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