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Rating: 
Summary: AFTER PRIMITIVISM, BOYHOOD
Review: The never has been, probably never will be, a finer, more stimulating utopian than Paul Gauguin. Unquestionably his life was a mess, but he was driven by angels, and transcendence, if not divinity, flickers from the pages of his journals as much as his paintings. Much revisionist bunk has been written about his modus, but Gauguin was an unashamed romantic - profoundly selfish, yes, but such is the call of the muse - and motivated solely by the drive to destroy hypocrisy and reinvent painting. He had the appetites of a satyr, and, while it lasted (and it lasted 20 years, while Van Gogh burned out in ten), a comparable animal energy. This slim book sums up his philosophy in aphorisms and boozy yarns and is the most elevating distraction for any grey day. It is crammed with jokes and visions, and has the feel of a roller-coaster - soaring from diatribes against corrupt Christian missionaries to the joy of unbridled sex in the sun, from the sanctity of humble animals to the prize of Confucius. Gauguin's son Emil edited this volume for publication in 1921 and insists that it is the true voice of his father, as opposed to the watered-down "Noa Noa" which, in its Dover edition, a reprint of the 1919, is equally interesting, if a little stilted. The bottom line, of course, is that Cezanne, Seurat, Van Gogh and Gauguin invented modern painting and all paid a huge personal price for their pursuit of the new way forward. All suffered great anguish, but none retained the buoyant irreverence of boyhood that twinkles in all of Gauguin. Read this, and see the difference.
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