Going to Gauguin

At last, I managed to get to the Tate Modern major Gauguin exhibition and it was absolutely stunning. The rooms were laid out in thematic order, but also tried to show the chronolgy between the pieces, how ideas recurred or were altered. This is really a must see exhibition as it has been a good few years since any previous Gauguin exhibition, I think there was a Post Impressionist exhibition around 79/80s, when I was at college; one I missed as I was 'up north'.

Starting with self portraits, this was to show that Gauguin almost created this idea of a mystical artist shaman. Yet, this has been debunked by Waldemar Januszczak's documentary about Gauguin's life. There were some fantastic paintings, Gauguin's use of perspective to add people of objects in unusual viewpoints, showing his love of Japonisme that effected the majority of French and European paintings at the time.

I was impressed that there was two rooms putting Gauguin in context with the historical events and the places that he visited. Posters of the exhibitions, that he would of visited that fed the imagination. Some sketches showing how ideas developed or how he perceived of his own work, Christ in the garden of Gethsemane.

What always impresses is finding pictures that have not been reproduced or printed as iconic images. There were several in this exhibition, and then by placing them in context with more well known images. It made you re-consider these works. You can see how the images are worked, the shapes that carry a lot of the paintings, yet the differences in painting are not that great. It is simple. You can see the use of complimentary colours to offset the ideas and how they played through.

This exhibition is going to Washington this year and if you can go, then you must. As it shows a one of the greats in context of his own times and with his own pieces.