the traveler
In college, the international relations majors I knew were fascinated by all foreign languages and countries. Students interested in Russia majored in Slavic Studies. Those interested in India majored in South Asian Studies. However, IR majors were those who were interested in the whole world. Though Gauguin is associated with Tahiti, he spent his early years in Peru. He also traveled to Martinique. He wasn't just focused on one place. Further, I once read that immigrants usually move twice: first, from small town to capital, and then from developing nation to developed one. Gauguin moved to Brittany, a region of France, before going abroad. The work emphasizes how Gauguin was a pioneer of the symbolist school. I usually only think of Arthur Rimbaud and poetry when thinking of that movement. The work speaks of Gaugin's uneasy relationship with Van Gogh (and there was an exhibit on that topic in Chicago circa 2001), however, the work also says Gauguin was nurtured by Pissarro and an artist younger than him. Tahiti only comes up in the latter fraction of the documentary. One scholar said his relationship to that island and its people was "racist" like many of those at the time. The artist is not let off the hook as some analysts would probably like to do. He said his famous work of the prone, undressed, Tahitian female (his "wife") shows her fear of ghosts. I still think the work is explicitly sexual and can't imagine that that aspect was unknown to him. The documentary explains that many of this Tahitian paintings have Christian themes, rather than non-Eurocentric ideas. The documentary mentions that Gauguin was syphilitic, but it never explains how and when he caught it and to whom he might have spread it. The works they show stood out to me for their absence or marginalization of grown men. What was Gauguin's view of women, especially women of color? What was his stance toward men and what does their absence signify? I'm frustrated how these questions are never raised or answered here. The work states that the artist tried to commit suicide, but failed. I can't think of any other famous person who did that. Usually the suicide of a famous person is only brought up when that causes their death. The work says Gauguin married the Tahitian female in his famous prone painting. However, it never states whether he just left her or properly divorced her. What happened to her afterwards? What did she say or think when he returned to Tahiti and had a new female companion? A different source calls all of his subsequent partners "mistresses" as Gauguin probably did not formerly divorce his Danish wife. This work only had two interviewees: an Anglophone man and woman. It's possible that Francophone interviewees or Polynesian ones would have added an interesting dynamic to the piece. The word "primitive" was thrown around too easily in the work; I think "pre-modern" or "colonial" would have been more appropriate and sensitive.