Paul Gauguin as post-impressionist

Impressionism

Paul Gauguin as dialogue between Robinson Crusoe & Lucy?

Paul Gauguin 1848-1903, post-Impressionist painter (cf. Van Gogh)

biography

biography

developed style of primitivism:

• celebration / romanticization of traditional lifestyles
   
• closeness to nature
   
• less inhibited sexual expression

lived in Peru as child

1891--traveled to West Indies, incl. Martinique and Panama Canal construction

Lucy 124-5 father left by his mother; > grandmother

father’s father & Panama Canal

later to Tahiti and Marquesas Islands in Polynesia

Gauguin as Crusoe?

Pages in Lucy that apparently refer to Paul Gaugin

95 [Gauguin]

95 halfway across world to live

95 place as prison

95 man’s life in pages of book

95 not a man; young woman from fringes of world > servant

Tahiti Girls

Breton Girls

1899

Girl with Fan

Question: Why the modern west's attraction to the primitive? Does it compensate for, or "give the lie to," modern first-world dominance, or is it just more romantic condescension?

Question: sexualization of other? Displacement? Is the first-world self abstracted from sexuality?

Significance of repression of sexuality in Crusoe? Of its liberation in Lucy?

113 “We have such bad sex”

162 going far away to live in a place of uncommon natural beauty