Woman with a Fan: Paul Gauguin's Heavenly Vairaumati-a Parable ...

Woman with a Fan: Paul Gauguin's Heavenly
Vairaumati-a Parable of Immortality
June Hargrove
I work a bit like the Bible, where the doctrine is pronounced
in symbolic form, presenting a double aspect...
; it's the sense literal, superficial, figurative, mysterious
of a parable.-Paul Gauguin to Andrh Fontainas,
August 1899'
Paul Gauguin arrived in September 1901 in the Marquesas
Islands, where he died at the age of fifty-four in May 1903.
Despite deteriorating health during this period, he was remarkably
productive, achieving some of his most technically
assured and subtly enigmatic paintings. Although these works
are mentioned in the modern literature on Gauguin, their
presence is commonly invoked to expose the gendered and
colonialist attitudes prevalent in his day. 2 If they are described,
the emphasis is on their Arcadian beauty rather than
their potential content.
Gauguin's symbolism in his late paintings has been given
scant attention in part because he himself confused the situation
by claiming to repudiate literary explanations, consequently
discouraging efforts to probe this work for complex
nuances. Just as Gauguin fled Europe but could not escape
Paris, he sought to abandon narratives but had recourse to
words. The artist strove to generate a mode of pictorial
abstraction, analogous to music, with nonrepresentational
elements transmitting the painting's emotional harmonies.
The viewer's experience kindles subjective responses that
intermingle with layers of meaning couched by Gauguin in
the ambiguous terms of a parable. Gaining insight into Gauguin's
artistic quest in the final months of his life not only
opens new perspectives on the art of his Marquesan period, it
also sheds light on his impact on artists of the next generation.
4 '
This essay stems from a larger project concerning the art
that Gauguin produced in the Marquesas Islands, but it focuses
on one painting in order to explore the tension between
meaning and abstraction in his late use of symbolism,
a dialectic fundamental to fin de si&cle modernism. Woman
with a Fan (Fig. 1) is typically presumed to be the depiction of
a young Marquesan woman devoid of symbolic import. 4
Nonetheless, the image begs further investigation. The figure
sits at an awkward angle in a chair distinguished by its oddity.
The fan, which she holds more like a scepter than a fashion
accessory, bears a striking targetlike ornament. The glowing
color of the woman's skin set against a golden ground imbues
her introspection with luminous majesty. While no known
text by Gauguin refers specifically to this painting, the artist
wrote extensively on his art and his faith at the time he
realized it.
The following argument uses a combination of visual and
verbal clues to identify the subject of the painting as the
deified Vairaumati, the mortal wife of the god Oro, who rose
to the heavens as his consort. Thus identified, Gauguin's
depiction of a central figure of a Maori myth can be seen to
frame his intertwined aesthetic and spiritual beliefs. The
archetype for his successive versions of Vairaumati, starting in
1892, remains the painting Hope by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes,
which illuminates the role of transposition in their
evolution. The premise of transposition is the linchpin of
Gauguin's creative process, which demands unfettered freedom
to achieve true originality. The principle of artistic
liberty, which he believed to be his greatest contribution to
the future, is elicited in this canvas by an emblem inseparable
from the 1789 French Revolution: the blue, white, and red
rosette on the fan. These diverse constituents converge in
Woman with a Fan, which can be read as his ultimate meditation
on the creative process.
Woman with a Fan asserts the late symbolism of Gauguin as
a porous matrix that allows constellations of associations to
coalesce, dynamic alliances instead of a fixed set of signs. Its
expressive character is driven by the slippage between motifs.
The musical paradigm that he embraced led him to seek
polysemous correspondences in his imagery. For Gauguin,
the mutability of the figure's pose becomes synonymous with
the soul's reincarnation, transforming Woman with a Fan in
the person of Vairaumati into a parable of immortality, conflating
his artistic and spiritual convictions.
Rift with Art Critics
Gauguin's love-hate relationship with the Parisian literati
took a turn for the worse in the early 1890s, with the accusations
of Emile Bernard that Gauguin had robbed him of
credit for initiating the Symbolist style. This precipitated a
number of author-critics, notably, Felix F6n6on and Camille
Mauclair, to denigrate Gauguin as a peintre-litt&ateur (painterwriter),
dependent on the poets of the Symbolist milieu he
frequented. Gauguin mounted his own campaign to advocate
the artist's right to dispose of his sources and inspiration at
will. He challenged the pervasive authority of art critics and
castigated them for their misguided opinions about the merits
of his accomplishments. Motivated by his desire to put
painting on a par with poetry, he retaliated with art geared to
counter their attacks.5
Gauguin's growing animosity toward critics was a factor in
his disillusionment with France that prompted his return to
the South Pacific. To legitimate his independence from literary
prototypes, he asserted the abstract nature of his art,
which has been construed to obviate symbolic references.
Like other of his contemporaries, he borrowed concepts
from music to validate his abstractions.' Among his statements
to this effect are those in letters written in 1899 to
Andr6 Fontainas, editor of the Mercure de France-his conduit
to the Paris scene. The exchange was precipitated by the
poet's critique that the painting Where Do We Come From? What
Are We? Where Are We Going? was impossible to decipher

It\OMAA 1l1111 A ./VI I'A,: GAU (GA t IN S H(EA%FNI.) V\IRA\VIA 1I 553
I PIaul (Gauguin, Wmnaw wilh a Fan, 1902, oil on canvas, 36 X 281/8 in. Folkwang Museum, Essen (artwork in the public domain)

554 ARI BULLETIN SEP'IEMBER 2()006 VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 3
without its title. Gauguin replied that his goal was to paint the
equivalent of "a musical poem, [that] needs no libretto."' 7
By privileging the musical character of painting, Gauguin
prioritized its emotional thrust. Although this has the effect
of nutting the resonance of his content, he did not eschew
meaning. After admonishing Fontainas, "you had thought,
wrongly, that my compositions... proceeded from an idea, 'a
priori, abstract that I sought to embody by a plastic representation
..... he clarified his method. "I work a bit like the
Bible, where the doctrine is pronounced in symbolic form,
presenting a double aspect ... ; it's the sense literal, superficial,
figurative, mysterious of a parable."'
Gauguin's writings are filled with heuristic remarks on the
ideas encoded in his art. "If a work of Art were the product of
chance," he admitted, "all these notes would be almost useless."''
Anticipating the pioneers of the twentieth century, he
declared, "emotion first! comprehension afterward."' 0 The
dichotomy between these two statements exposes the contradictions
that animate Gauguin's struggle at the end of his life
to quell his critics.
Retreat to Marquesas Islands
The Marquesas Islands were so named in 1595 by Spanish
explorers in the service of the viceroy of Peru, only to be
forgotten until Captain Cook's expedition of 1774. They are
magnificent, with their high volcanic peaks plunging into
narrow valleys and beaches of black sand. A distance of 800
miles northeast of Tahiti, the archipelago was annexed to
French Polynesia in 1842. Contact with Western culture
proved disastrous for the native population; ravaged by diseases
and alcohol, the inhabitants dropped in numbers from
an estimated 50,000 to 18,000 by the time the territory became
French, to around 3,500 in Gauguin's day." The Marquesan
culture, known for the quality of its carvings and
decorative arts, fared little better. Most of the important
surviving art objects were already in the hands of the collectors,
missionaries, anthropologists, and dealers who scoured
the South Pacific in the last decades of the nineteenth century.
The vestiges of this sculptural tradition were found in
artifacts made for the European trade.' 2
The Marquesas had intrigued Gauguin from early on in his
first Polynesian stay. Perhaps the archipelago's distant connection
with Peru, the locus of his own childhood and family
origins, held some primal appeal for him.' 3 " The remoteness
of the islands fueled his notion of them as a more "savage,"
more authentic Polynesia, where life would be cheaper and
simpler.' 4 His admiration for Marquesan art was apparent in
his early Tahitian works, and he reiterated his appreciation in
writing throughout his years in the South Pacific.''
On his return to Oceania in 1895, Gauguin again contemplated
living in the Marquesas, though he would not act on
this inclination for another six years.I16 If not an outright
pariah to the French colony in Tahiti, he had few friends, and
he exacerbated his precarious position through a brief but
vituperative newspaper career. The search for his elusive
utopia, his naive certitude that life would be less expensive
and easier in more remote regions, played into his decision
to pull up stakes fbr the Marquesas. Thanks to a stipend from
his Paris dealer, Ambroise Vollard, he had enough money to
secure his modest livelihood. And possibly the move was a way
to extricate himself from his journalistic activities in order to
devote his remaining days to making art. He announced in
July that he was "moving... to ... a still almost cannibalistic
island in the Marquesas .... There, I feel, completely uncivilized
surroundings and total solitude will revive in me, before
I die, a last spark of enthusiasm which will rekindle my
imagination and bring my talent to its conclusion."'1 7
On September 16, 1901, he steamed into the village of
Atuona on the island of Hiva Oa, where the welcome was so
inviting that he impetuously decided to stay. In November, he
was able to move into his house, which he christened the
Maison du Jouir. He was joined by the fourteen-year-old
Vaeoho Marie-Rose, who left him in mid-August the following
year to return home to give birth to a child.'" Physically, he
was a wreck, suffering from serious problems with his health,
including an unsightly eczema, all exacerbated by syphilis,
which left him at times unable to walk. His poor condition
did not deter him from stirring things up, and almost from
the outset he was caught in a contentious cycle with local
clerical and colonial authorities.
Nevertheless, he produced some extraordinary works of
art; ironically, the paintings betray no sign of Marquesan
influences."9 While a trip to see the last of the great stone
figures, the tikis, was undoubtedly more than his limited
locomotion could handle, Gauguin seems to have made no
effort to meet local craftsmen. 2 0 Since paradise existed only
in his fantasy, his art probed deeper into the interior landscape
of his psyche as he retreated further from Western
civilization. And death moved relentlessly closer. Soon after
his arrival, he wrote with more clairvoyance than he was
willing to admit, "I need only two years of health, without too
many monetary hassles, which take an excessive toll on my
nerves, to arrive at a certain maturity in my art."'2
Texts from the Marquesas Islands
As fearful for his posthumous reputation as for the afterlife of
his soul, Gauguin turned to word as well as image to impart
his vision. Besides countless letters, he wrote three manuscripts
in the Marquesas, supplementing and modifying earlier
texts to suit his amplified purposes. The recycling of
passages in his writings is akin to his reutilization of motifs in
his art, revealing the development of his ideas as his thoughts
matured.
In the early months of 1902, the artist completed a treatise
entitled "L'esprit moderne et le catholicisme" (The Modern
Spirit and Catholicism), which grew out of the manuscript
"L'&glise catholique et les temps modernes" (The Catholic
Church and Modern Times)." 2 The latter was written in
1897-98, in conjunction with the creation of Where Do We
Come From? 2 , 3 The revision was spurred by his anxiety about
the future of his testimonial masterpiece after a failed attempt
to place it in the Musee du Luxembourg, which may
explain why he inscribed the earlier dates, "1897/1898," on
the 1902 cover.2 4 The rejection must have had ramifications
for his concurrent artistic endeavors as well. "L'esprit moderne
et le catholicisme" was meant to set the record straight
on his religious beliefs, which he located in the context of his
ambivalence toward modern science. The text provides insights
into the import of his metaphysical reasoning for his
art. He laid out his syncretic theories, framed in an attack on

ithe 'pet tnicitus itmpact of WesIern political, social, and sacred
institutlions on contemporatr Polynesia, quoting the Bible
It rottghtot.2
If "l,tspiit tiodnetie 't le catholicisme" documents Gaugtin's
dis(Liin lot the Catholic Church and its prelates, Ra-
(notars di ralpin (A Danber's (;ossip), written by September
1902, was it settling of accounts with the art world and its
c ri t ics. 26 Molt' than a cdiatribe against critics, however, Racon-
ais pr ovidcs an err'atic blueprint of how Gauguin thought
ahout making art. Its modernity lies in its rambling structure,
crafied to iesist "Beaux-Arts" codification. Similarly, his discutsivc
tinitoirs Avant et apres (Before and After) were
pcimcd in 1903 to persuade posterity to accord him what he
peceived as his rightutl place in the history of art. 2 7 Despite
the earliirt clpistolaty clash between him and the editor of the
Mr) I-i tie' iance, (Gauguin entrusted the latter two manu-
scripts to IFottainias. Regarding Avant et ap@r, he confided to
Georgcs-l)aniel de Monfei'id, "I care about this publication
becausc it's al once a vengeance and a means to make myself
known ;t11l utdel-stood ... .,,28 His words were conceived to
coniphcinc images that lie constructed as visual parables
addressed to a t
European 'lite.
The Identity of the Woman with a Fan
lVoman with a Ian has hitierto been seen only as the beauti-
ful iportrait of Tohotaua, the wife of Gauguin's friend
I IaapItatnii.2'1 Shle is familiar fonmt the photograph taken by
Lotis (0-elei in tlh artist's studio (Fig. 2). "' Grelet was a
young Swiss traveling salesman who struck tip a friendship
wi I the older tant when both were living in the Marquesas.
An immaci tihotographer, be took this picture in 1902 at the
bIehesi of G(auguin. Some years later, in a letter, he explains
that tIhc pholograph
was taken in tlhe stludio of Gauguin, several months before
his dcathI. hlie wornan, who is tiarquesan and not tahitian,
was posed and actually took this position on the indica-
6ions of(Gauguin. We had wanted to photograph her with
a inude Istso. Unfortunately her breasts having already
wilthered (she was baarely twenty!) obliged tis, for aesthetics,
to hide thern by attaching a wrap around her neck.
This xotmia wxas the wife of Gauguin's cook. She represeits
Ihe )it-re minatquesan type, with this anomaly however
hat she t'iiid magnificent chestnut red hair, which is something
of a t arity out there. The negative of the photo has
bccil dialnlagcd.C
This Ittcr docnitcius that Gauguin dictated her pose from
the outset, presumably before he began the painting, as
Grelet tiakes no mention of it. Despite insinuations that her
rclaiionshipl with (Gauguin was "intimate," the altered attire
c'ctssiIatud Iby her sagging breasts implies that he had no
prior physical knowledge of Ier body. Stich assumptions are
more likely at product of' the enduring European fantasy
abouitt the sex.lal axailability ofi non-Western women. 2 His
dilapidated body, with its open sores, was hardly conducive to
his playing lit'e Don Juaitt, even in a society of casual sex.
Morcotxr, although Gauguin complained that access to
women was limited, ite had successfully bartered for Vaeoho
I) join hint in the Maisont dii Jouir in November 1901.)
WOMAN WT1111 A FAA: ALlI (U GAUG IN'S HlAVENIY VAIRX\ MAT I 555
Tohotaua probably remained little more than an acquaintance.
The black-and-white photograph offers a glimpse of the
spartan interior of Gauguin's last abode with his few worldly
possessions. The room had walls of loosely woven bamboo,
furnished with a plain wooden chair and a rudimentary chest
of drawers, above which were tacked reproductions of art.
The latter speak to Gauguin's eclectic taste: Hope by Puvis de
Chavannes; Harlequin by Edgar Degas; Portrait of tlhe Artists
Wl,f and Two Eldest Children by Hans Holbein; and a photograph
of a.Javanese sculpture of Vishnu.ý" Gauguin's extensive
use of photographs is well noted, and the artist himself
wrote to Odilon Redon, "I carrv around photographs, drawings,
a whole little world of comrades, who talk to me evervday."
While the painted resemblance to Tohotata in her artificial
position with the upright fan remains faithful to the
photograph, virtually everything else has been transformed.
She no longer engages the viewer directly but withdraws in
reverie. The coiffure of her resplendent chestnut red hait has
been subdued. A white wrap, tucked above the waist as Gauguin
first envisioned for the photograph, has been substituted
for the floral cotton paren. She sits on a fantastic carved
chair, unlike the banal angles of the actual seat. The traces of
the studio are effaced from the background, and the gallery
of reproductions has blurred into an organic motif sitspended
in the upper left corner, below the signature, "Paul
Gatiguin/1902." All of these changes abstract her from the
quotidian.
In marked contradistinction to the picture of Tohotaua, in
Gauguin's so-called portrait of his first Tahitian love (Fig. 3),
Teha'amana sits primly clothed in a missionary dress, locked
in an elaborate decor. The Tahitian title iroahi metna no
Tehaamana ( Teha amana has many ancestors), is written on the
left, not far from the signature, "P Gauguin./93" on her right
knee. The sitter, wearing fragrant white frangipani and a red
flower in her hair, signs of her sexual availability, looks out at
the viewer. Behind her are glyphs copied from wooden tablets
originating in the Easter Island and a painted frieze
depicting an idol of Hina, the Tahitian goddess of the tnoon.
Over each shoulder, a disembodied head floats, which
may-or may not-be part of the painted background, akin
to other disturbing faces found in other of Gauguin's paintings.ýs"
No chair is visible, but some mangoes, at once an
offering to the gods and an evocation of the apples of Eve, sit
beside her.
Despite the assertion of her identity in the Tahitian title,
the painting is not a portrait of Teha'amana but a fiction
contrived in tandem with a fabrication-Noa Voa, the artist's
pseudomemoirs of his first stay in Tahiti.:'7 The absence of
situating elements in Woman with a Fan retnoves the sitter
from the physical density of Teha'amana's world, but her
image is no less charged. Neither sitter's identity per se is
relevant to the painting because Gauguin's representations of
women are constructs, regardless of links real or imagined to
actual individuals. Over the decade that separates these two,
the synthesis of Polynesian and European references became
less forced. While Gauguin's predilection fot an overt narrative
recedes, images of women remain the vehicle for reflections
about himself, his art, and his world.:"

556[ A\R1 IWUI,I, I, IN SE,P I VIBEIR 200OG \OrUNIF I,XXN\VIII Nt MBER 3
The obvious attribute shared bv the two women is a fan,
and the comparison emphasizes its pivotal role in locating
the subject. The fan, a marker of rank in the South Pacific,
indicates noble lineage.: 9 The woven paln fan of leha'amana
is common in Polynesia, whereas Trohotaua's feather fan is
not. III all probability, it belonged not to Tohotaua bitl to
(Gauguin, who collected artifacts within his limited imean S.40
He could have purchased it in the course of his passages
or from the piles of exotic objects trafficked for the Euro-
2 LouIiS Grelet, Tohot(ma (;iaugui's
Studio, 1902, photograph
pean market at the turn of the century. It functions like an
insignia.
Tohotaua holds the fan vertically, as if it Nvere a badge of
office. Its salient characteristic, one that tlheatens to overpower
the composition in its vibrancy, is the blue, white, and
red ornament at the joint fastening the feathers to the hand1c.
Gauguin seldom used primary colors, and here the flat
red and blue hues stand out against the surrounding white
and flickering yellows. The similarity of this clecoration to the

3 (G,tiguin, Aferahi i,e/ia rio Ichaamana
( "I'Ma 'atwemet //a,s Many 1( pAstois), 1893,
oil on (anvas, 291/1 X 20Yi in. Art
hustimt( of" (hicago (ar(work in the
pliblic doinailn)
Iricolot cockade, synonymous with liberty since the French
Revolmion, colild1 scarcely be fortuitous.,1
Liberty-an Artistic Imperative
ThC Consl)pi(c(us presence of a revolutionary symbol in the
mcditalivc picrlle of a b)are-breasted woman, abstracted from
time and place, suggests that she harbors deeper connotations.
(Gauguin's prolific contemporaneous writings clarify
wh\ he aheppol)trialed the cockade as a strategy, deploying it as
an cin1mle of attistic liberty. As he asserted to Monfreid, the
p)rinciplhe of liberty was paramount to his aesthetic philosophy:
I know I ani righlt insofar as art is concerned, but will I have
the stiv'ngth to express it in a positive way? In any event I
WOMAN 1111 A hAN: PAU (UAGAGUIN'S 1TEA\ENI,) VA\IRAUR MAlT 557
will have done my duty and if my works do not last, the
memory will remain of an artist who freed painting from
many of its outdated academic and symbolist constraints
(another kind of sentimentalism).42
In the Racontan de rapin, Gauguin articulated his disdain tfo
rules and dogmas (academic or symbolist) in the language of
revolution. For the sake of "a complete liberation .... " artists
should "break the glass at the risk of cutting their fingersfinished,
to the next generation henceforth independent,
disengaged from all constraint, to ingeniously resolve the
problem." They must "fight against all schools (all without
distinguishing) ... " By throwing off such constraints, modern
artists made France the epicenter of artistic innovation.
He compared the changes wrought bv them to the 1789

558 ART I'1,1,ETIN SEPTEMBER 2006 VO1IME LXXXV1II NUMBER 3
Revolution: "If the Bastille that prompted fear was demolished,
it's because free air was good to breathe.'" 4 3 He maintained
that the nation's preeminence in the arts stemmed
from the creative revolution that he and others fomented. As
an icon of liberty popularized during the French Revolution,
the tricolor cockade evoked the concept in all domains. His
analogy between political and artistic liberty was strengthened
by the prevailing assumption during the Third Republic
that the nation's cultural supremacy compensated for
France's humiliating military defeat by the Germans in the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. In this chauvinist vein, he
equates the liberating achievements of Puvis de Chavannes,
Degas, Edouard Manet, Paul C6zanne, and Vincent van
Gogh, among others, with French political hegemony, referring
to the losses of 1870-71: "Thus it seems to me, with this
we can console ourselves for the two lost provinces [Alsace-
Lorraine], because with it we have conquered all of Europe,
and especially, in recent times, created the liberty of the
plastic arts." 4 '
Although Gauguin did not include his own name in the list
he drew op at the end of Racontars, he nonetheless cast
himself in the vanguard of artists "who are going to open the
way to the art of the 20th century."' 46 He reiterated his position
to Monfreid:
When will men understand the meaning of the word
Liberty-You know how long that I have wanted to establish
the right to dare all: my abilities ... haven't produced a
great result, but nonetheless the mechanism is launched.
The public doesn't owe me because my pictorial work is
only relatively good, but the painters who today profit
from this liberty, they owe me something. 47
Gauguin's concept of liberty, "the right to dare all," is predicated
on the uninhibited flow of ideas. He insisted on the
absolute freedom of the creative will. His originality knows Do
fears, no bounds-not even he is necessarily certain of the
genesis of his designs: "Ideas are like dreams an assemblage
more or less formed from things or thoughts glimpsed: do we
really know where they come from?" He deplored critics who
aggravated "the continual research for father-fathered between
artists," mocking their compulsion "to go squabble in
front of the.judges for [who had] the idea first. And this
mania has caught on with painters who care for their originality,
like women their beauty." He repeats, "Ideas! do we
know where they come from?" His art grows out of countless
permutations, drawn from an array of sources, combined
with utter disregard for preconceived standards of taste, governed
only by the artist's vision. He embraces the dialogue
with the past, be it antiquity or the present, acknowledging
"the artist isn't born all of one piece. That he brings a new
link to the chain already begun, it's already a lot." The artist
forges this link in the chain through an amalgam of influences
in the crucible that he calls transposition-a term
borrowed from music. To emphasize his point, he cited the
poet.Jean Dolent, "Transpose all to be able to say all, and
borrow from all the models without treason and without
injury; the gesture of a friend, the face of a friend." Gauguin
concludes, "the artist is recognized by the quality of the
transposition. To transpose isn't to change the color of the
cheeks." 48
Gauguin's comments provide a rationale for the way he
made art. An autodidact, he vaunted his independence from
any one person or school. He took from any and all, flinging
his net wide, discarding freely as he moved on. His patchwork
approach achieved a unity of effect because he filtered his
finds through deeply felt sensations and convictions hammered
out through trial and error. Borrowing from past
models was standard academic procedure, but the imaginative
freedom with which he defied stale canons gave the
practice new potency and shaped it to his own ends. 49 Gauguin
was a bricoleur, a brilliant tinkerer. Through the transformation
of multiple prototypes, he invented an artistic
vocabulary compatible with modern sensibilities. He assimilated
ideas, materials, and techniques from an astonishing
range of antecedents, without preconceived constraints,
channeling them into a powerful emotional language that
incited his audience to respond with poetic empathy.5" The
resulting panoply of associations encourages the viewer to
formulate interpretations from the kaleidoscopic combinations.
His remarks may be read as self-serving in the face of
aspersions that he owed his style to others. Camille Pissarro
wrote to his son Lucien, Gauguin "is always poaching on
someone's land; nowadays, he's pillaging the savages of Oceania."'
1 If Gauguin was ignorant of Pissarro's quip, he was
acutely aware that others found him guilty of stealing ideas.
But, as he protested, "there are many ways to comprehend
theft.''5 2 Under the rubric of liberty he justified the assimilation
of disparate ideas. What might be dubbed insouciance by
some, plagiarism by others, for Gauguin was a legitimate part
of the creative process, wherein the criterion for judgment
resides in "the quality of the transposition."
Vairaumati as the Vehicle of Transposition
The tricolor cockade endows Woman with a Fan with an overt
reference to liberty, presumably manifested in the composition
through transposition, the touchstone of Gauguin's aesthetic
credo. The quality of the transposition must therefore
be deduced from the freedom with which the painting's
sources are transformed, and sources critical for Gauguin's
late works emerge from the repetition of motifs across his
oeuvre. Woman with a Fan shares a marked affinity with his
previous representations of Vairaumati, and these canvases,
however differentiated by protean adaptations of form and
content, amount to a de facto series that culminates in
Woman with a Fan. The latter accrues meaning through these
modifications as a metaphor for transposition in art. The
myth's appeal for Gauguin, 'judging from the number of
times that he returned to it, implies that the subject had a
value for the artist that enriches the significance of the transpositions.
As Vairaumati, the Tahitian goddess of regeneration,
the woman with a fan incarnates the transcendence of
the soul, thereby giving form to the journey of the spirit as
well as the creative process.
Gauguin encountered the theme of Vairaumati in 1892
when he discovered the book Les voyagcs aux iles du grand
o4an byJacques Antoine Moerenhout (1837). The artist soon

4 (Gatigin, Te aa no Arcois (Thw Seed o/
dhe ArioiN,), 1892, oil on burlap, 361/4 X
28KY in. Ilihe Museum of Modern Art,
New York, The William S. Paley
Co'llction, SPC14.1990 (artwork in the
ptiblic domain: digital image © The
Museum of* Modern Art/licensed by
Sc(ala/Art Resonrcc, NY)
in(dcrtook his own account of the Polynesian pantheon of
gods and the related myth of creation, the illustrated Ancien
cu/le ma/ltoir (Ancient Maari Cu/I). This text, which includes
passagcs copied verbatim from Moerenhout, introduces the
themes aronmd which the artist probed the mysteries of death
and regeneration that permeate his work throughout the last
decadc of his life. Gauguin emphasized pointed parallels with
Ihe Bible. The exegesis on the "Eternity of Matter" recounts
tie dialogue where Tefatou, god of the earth, mandates the
death of all living things, which the divine Hina counters to
secure their rebirth. 5 The instrument of this regeneration
was Vaiiamniati, the beautiful mortal chosen by the god Oro
to procreate a new race to replenish the world after the death
ordained by Tefitou. After their son was conceived, Oro,
tramisfOtried into a column of fire, rose to the heavens. On
licr death, lie "likewise had Vairatimati rise, to take her place
amnong the t)eities., 5 5 ( Gauguin's adaptation of this myth was
stimuilated bv his fascination with the cult dedicated to Oro,
WOM1AN A WIT1 A FAN: PAU I . G At (IT IN'S H EAVENLY \.A IRA UNA'It. 559
the Arioi Society. 56 Consecrated to free love, this sect celebrated
exuberant sexual rites and practiced infanticide until
the society was eradicated by the combined forces of the
missionaries and colonial authorities in the nineteenth century.
Gauguin considered the amorous epic "one of the most
important spiritual treasures that I had come to Tahiti in
search of."' 57
The myth inspired the first two of Gauguin's canvases
based on Tahitian legends. He sketched Vairaumati Tei Oa
(Vairaumati Is Her Name) in a letter to Paul S6rusier in March
1892.:, She faces to the left, sitting at an angle on a typical
floral cotton cloth that covers a slope of raised ground. She
holds a cigarette in her left hand, her right hand placed to
her side. Her pose is similar in the second painting of that
year, Te aa no Areois (The Seed of the Ariois) (Fig. 4), where
Vairaumati proffers a sprouting seed."M This symbol of fertility
accords with her role as the mother of Oro's son, whose
birth inspired the founding of the Arioi Society.s But it

56()0 AR I MU I LE IIN SiE` FTMLBL R 2006 VO1 UIME L XXX\ VIII NJI MhER 3
stuely also alludes to the seed for the tree of ora (life), which,
according to the myth, the white dove brought from the
moon, the realm of Hina. 1 " Gauguin translated the title as La
ge.rme des Areois in the 1893 catalog for his dealer Paul Durand-
Ruel, but the sprouting leaves are symbolic, not literal, for the
growth of the Ariois. The Ariois' cult of sexuality is the
celebration of life, and ora means life-especially human
life-to the Polynesians. True to Gauguin's creative independence,
he shows her with attributes (the cigarette, the seed)
that go beyond the myth to tap into the history of the Arioi
Society.
These pictures were the forerunners of Vairumati (Fig. 5),
as the title appears in the lower left corner of the canvas."' 2
When Gauguin returned to the theme of Vairaumati after the
death of his daughter Aline in 1897, it held profound personal
associations for him. Its potential as a metaphor for his
spiritual and aesthetic philosophies matured as the circumstances
of his life prompted him to contemplate the afterlife
of his soul and that of his art, for which he had sacrificed so
much. His health steadily worsened, and the diagnosis of
syphilis had cast a pall over his outlook. The despondent
father found solace in the legend of this "mortal-turnedgoddess"
who personified the "rebirth of the spirit after the
death of the body.... He attached Vairumati to Aline's
memory by echoing the figure on the cover of his Cahier pour
mafille... Aline, written in 1893, with the small tiki carved on
the throne to her right.6' 4 The framing device for the idol on
the Cahier pour Aline stems from the ipu oto, the design of
interlocking squares characteristic of Marquesan tattoos, imitated
in the thronelike shape around Vairumati." Her bed is
covered with a yellow cloth decorated with flowerlike patterns
that recall other tattoos. 0 ('
Vairaumati's story motivated Gauguin's friend Charles
5 Gauguin, Vairumati, 1897, oil on
canvas, 2818 X 3714 in. Musee d'Orsay,
Paris (artwork in the public domain;
photograph by Erich Lessing, provided
by Art Resource, NY)
Morice to write the poem "Parahi te Marae" (Here Resides
the Temple) in 1894-95, when the poet and painter were
collaborating on an expanded version of Noa Noa. Gauguin
copied the poem into the second manuscript of Noa Noa,
which he took back to Tahiti in 1895.17 "Parahi te Marae"
does not conform to the myth, but it confirms Vairaumati's
status in Gauguin's Tahitian cosmology as the second Eve,
the mother of a new race, whose death precedes her heavenly
ascent.6 0 8 The mood of Vairumati reflects the emotional intensity
of the poem, which dwells on the death of Tahiti and its
gods, who orchestrate the sacrifice of Vairaumati for the sake
of rebirth. The furnacelike red and yellow background
evokes the flames and blood that saturate Morice's verses.
The concept of reincarnation developed over time in Gauguin's
thinking and reemerged after Aline's death. Already in
1893, the Cahier pour Aline reveals Gauguin's growing attraction
to Buddhism, in vogue during the latter years of the
century.(' 9 He worked on it concurrently with the Ancien culte
mahorie, where he contends that the Tahitians ascribed to "an
idea of Indian metempsychosis." 71 , While painting Vairumati,
he amplified his views on reincarnation in the essay "L'6glise
catholique et les temps modernes."' 7 1 He espoused the Hindu
principle of the transmigration of the soul, combining reincarnation
with the notion of spiritual perfection leading to
Nirvana. In a letter of November 1897 to Morice, he declared
"L'eglise catholique" to be "perhaps from a philosophical
point of view what I've expressed best in my life.", 72 In this
treatise, he expounded his beliefs in the context of contemporary
science and attitudes toward Christianity. His syncretic
faith, a composite derived from the world's religions, blends
Christian, Buddhist, and Maori tenets. These topics are germane
to his painting Where Do We Come From? This masterful
canvas of 1898 visualizes the artist's ruminations on the spir-

itial in ihe nmodern world. His summary of the origins and
latc of himankind unfolds in a life cycle from right to left,
wheire a replica of the goddess as depicted in Vairumati sits
next to an old woman, uniting rebirth with death. 7 s These
ideas all inforin his renewed interest in Vairaumati as a
inctaplhot lot regeneration.
The snllject of Woman w/ih a Pan bears a strong resemblance
to that of Vairumali. Although the poses are reversed,
each liguire leans on a fully extended arm, pushing her
shoulder up iunder the thrust of her weight, borne on the
palh of her hand flat against the surface beneath her. Each
perches askew oin an exotic support, her legs to the side,
throwing the burden of her tot-so onto the column of her
armi. Vairatnnati is poised on the edge of an elongated seat
with an ornate headboard, not unlike a tombstone, whereas
tme woman with a fan is ensconced on a chair with a carved
back oddly rcriliniscent of bones, an ossified relic of the
b)eyond.7' Vairauniati's throne, framing her silhouette like a
lialo, is replaced by an aureole of light in Woman with a Fan.
Bloth women emanate a distinctive glow that matches the
dcscriplion of Vairaumnati in Noa Noa: "the fire of the sun
shines ini the gold of her body," 7 5 Next to Vairaumati, a white
bird chitiches a green lizard in its claws. Its luminosity delaclies
this winged companion from the fiery background, an
fIfect ecthoed in Woman wilh a Fan by the intense white
Iatl fes ofl heir fan and drapery against the paler warm colors.
Vaiirauimati appears outdoors, in front of green and yellow
bIushes, accompanied by two seated women, one of whom
bears a pflater of offe ings, whereas the woman with a fan is
conspicuously alone. In contrast to the crowded surroundings
of Vairaumnati, the woman with a fan is isolated in an
ethereal zorie, where the organic forms hang in symbolic
ratlicr than real space. Neither woman is concerned with the
viewer each looks off to the side, conveying a dreamy air.
I lowcwvr, Vairautnati is tied to the earth, in contrast to the
woman with a fan, who inhabits a spiritual realm: the timeless
godden ground of Cimabue, so revered by Gauguin. 7 '
The apposition of WoUman with a Fan to Vairunmati makes it
a plausible oonclusion to the canvases that Gauguin devoted
to "tlhis beloved of the gods."' 77 The radiant serenity and
sovereign moutnentality of the former coincide seamlessly
with tlic myth's finale, when Vairaumati takes her place
"almiong Ilie deities." iler shroudlike white wrap suits her
passage rotim the terrestrial to the celestial. To emphasize
thtm Vairauminai has shed her earthly bonds, Gauguin may
have norrowed the ancient. Egyptian usage of the fan as an
idcograph for a shade or spirit.7" Her feather fan is arguably
the vcstige of the white bird sacred to Hina, designating
Vairanttti as the vehicle of regeneration decreed by the
mooti god(lcss.
The canvases depicting Vairatutati accunmulate a force that
climaxes with Woman with a Fan. The exotic eroticism of the
itortaf's stori that lirst intrigued the artist gave way to his
regard (tI ht Iter role as the vessel of renascence. The pose gives
visual unity Io the figures, while anecdotal accessories progiessivcly
disappear. The changes themselves took on added
significaric folr him as he transformed the mythical subject
ovw(t the years. What had begun as the depiction of a myth
that prolffc'rd an ersatz authenticity for Gauguin's Tahitian
project shifted to the mode of a parable of regeneration,
WOMAN WITH A IFAN: PAUL GAIGUIVN'S HEAVENLY VAIRAUMATI 56(1
6 Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Hope, 1872, oil on canvas, 27'.
X 32Y/ in. Mus& d'Orsav, Paris (artwork in the public
domain; photograph by D. Arnaudet, provided by the Reunion
des Musees Nationaux)
steeped in allusions to his convictions and experiences.
Woman with a Ean brings closure to the myth by coumnemorating
Vairaumati's immortality through the aesthetic of
transposition.
Hope by Puvis de Chavannes
The parallel between Gauguin's figures of Vairaumati and
that of Hope in the painting of that name by Puvis de
Chavannes (Fig. 6) introduces another dimension to the
metaphor of transposition invested in W4oman With a Fan.79 As
the accepted prototype for the pose of Vairauniati, Hope
reinforces the metaphysical ties among Gauguin's different
versions. Gauguin held an abiding admiration for Puvis de
Chavannes, whose work imparted an ineffable aura of mystery
that Gauguin emulated. Although the two men differed
greatly, both in terms of their personalities and their art,
Puvis exerted a persistent influence on his younger colleague.
This could take the form of specific links between
compositions or in the more subtle ways that Gauguin manipulated
or repudiated the other's symbolism as a foil. His
penchant for the decorative found reinforcement in the
older man's art, with his similar taste for the primitive, rendered
with flat, matte surfaces. Puvis's murals lent their measure
of scope and scale to Mhere Do 11c Come P'rom?""
In the nude version of Hope, the maiden, turned toward the
viewer, her legs to the side, occupies a flowery mound. She
leans on her right hand, extending an oak branch in her left.
Behind her can be seen a castle in ruins and a field of crosses
marking the graves of soldiers, a scene of hibernal desolation.
Her youthful innocence and purity against a backdrop of
destruction and death signify rebirth, the rites of spring. The
hope in question refers to the ardent desire of the French to
see the nation's prestige restored after the Franco-Prussian
War-the war that deprived them of the provinces of Alsace
and Lorraine, as Gauguin notes in Racontars de rapin.I 1

562 ART BULL ETIN SEPTEMBER 2006 VOLUME LXXXVIII NUMBER 3
7 Gauguin, after Puvis de Chavannes, drawing published in
the Mercure de France 13 (February 1895): between 128 and 129
(artwork in the public domain)
Hope has a long history in Gauguin's oeuvre.,2 Both 1892
paintings of Vairaumati, noted above, are indebted to it.
Puvis's Hope sits parallel to her hand resting flat on the
covered mound, out of doors, whereas Gauguin reverses the
body in Vairaumati Tei Oa and Te aa no Areois. Each holds her
attribute in the direction of her legs, instead of extending it
to the side. They, too, are nudes surrounded by nature, where
autumnal colors emphasize the cycle of seasons, the earth's
death that precedes rebirth. In Vairumati and the repetition
in Where Do We Come From? the contours of the body and the
alignment of the figure are closer to the original configuration
by Puvis. One arm is to her left and the one on which she
rests is stiffer. The shadow on her right is quite similar to that
in Puvis's painting.
The woman with a fan, seated askew and leaning on one
arm, mirrors Puvis's counterpart, visible behind Tohotaua in
Grelet's photograph (Fig. 2). The juxtaposition of Tohotaua
to Hope lends credence to the speculation that the photograph
was commissioned less as an aide-memoire (and even
less a souvenir) than as testimony to the figure's ancestry,
underscoring the symmetry between the two compositions.
While the background details of the photograph disappear in
the painting, the aura of Hope lingers. Woman with a Fan
marks the last transformation of this image that Gauguin
admired enough to put on the wall of the Maison duJouir.
Whatever his criticisms of Puvis, his writings also evidence his
high esteem for this artis,S83
The history of Puvis de Chavannes's art gave added weight
to its place in Gauguin's thinking. Gauguin undoubtedly
knew Hope firsthand as it languished in the Durand-Ruel
Gallery in the 1880s, a legacy of the negative press that
dogged Puvis's early work. 8 4 In Racontars de rapin, he blasted
critics who currently hailed the painter as a hero of French
art for conveniently forgetting that "twenty years ago the Poor
hisherman and the Prodigal Son by Puvis de Chavannes mildewed
at Durand-Ruel's, rue de la Paix, with no chance to be
sold, even at modest prices." 8 5 The checkered reception of
Hope comforted Gauguin as another instance of a painting
scorned before its resurrection as a triumph. He saw in
Puvis's critical fortunes reassurance for his angst over the
assessment of his art in the twentieth century.
Prior to his return to Tahiti, Gauguin furnished a drawing
after Hope to accompany the poem dedicated to Puvis de
Chavannes by Morice in the Mercure de France (Fig. 7).86
Gauguin's calculated modifications to Puvis de Chavannes's
composition are striking in light of his working method. In
lieu of the field of crosses, he placed a crouching mourner at
the base of a truncated Crucifixion. For the oak sprig tendered
by Hope, he substituted a flower, usually read as a lily,
connoting purity, but it has been allied with the lotus, an
Eastern symbol of regeneration. Moreover, as he well knew,
the plucked flower could serve as a euphemism for the loss of
virginity. In so transforming Hope, Gauguin altered the substance
of Puvis's theme of death and rejuvenation to suit his
drift. The confrontation between the nude female and the
fragmented souvenir of Christ's martyrdom flips the focus
from the young woman as bearer of life to the one sacrificed
for its sake. 8 7 Gauguin exploited this homage simultaneously
to align himself with and to distance himself from the older
master.
His subsequent observations about Puvis pertain to this
mutation, but the remarks are no more a description of the
drawing than it is a rote copy of Hope:
Puvis explains his idea, yes, but he does not paint it. He is
a Greek while I am a savage, a wolf in the woods without a
collar. Purvis would call a painting "Purity," and to explain
it he would paint a young virgin holding a lily in her
hand-a familiar symbol; consequently one understands
it. Gauguin, for the title "Purity," would paint a landscape
with limpid waters; no stain of the civilized human being,
perhaps a figure. Without entering into details there is a
wide world between Puvis and myself. As a painter Puvis is
a lettered man but he is not a man of letters, while I am
not a lettered man but perhaps a man of letters. 88
Few were better able than Morice to appreciate Gauguin's
words, written in conjunction with Where Do We Come From? in
July 1901, preceding Gauguin's departure for the Marquesas,
a prologue to the year in which his ideas took their final form.
For all his purported disdain for Puvis's iconography in this
passage, Gauguin, too, reverted to symbols, as the drawing
attests, but he enlisted them in the service of his idiosyncratic
ends. He modified Hope to reflect the differences between
Puvis and himself. To crystallize Puvis's mode of symbolism,
he specified the lily, the Renaissance attribute of the Virgin
Mary signifying purity. Whereas Puvis relied on a convention
to convey a finite message, Gauguin chose symbols to disrupt
preconceived definitions, even to reverse the thrust of the
expected message-as in subverting the picked flower to sully
the maiden's innocence. He shuffled them at will to instill his
images with religious and aesthetic dimensions based on his
homespun philosophies, and he sought to make the pictorial
field integral to the message. Thus, "purity" is notjust a virgin
landscape, it is a work of art purified of the taint of academic
protocol. In Racontars de rapin, he stressed that "it is not the
attribute, the symbol that the model holds in her hand that

indicates ihe legend, but really the style." In "the virgins of
Ciniabiie," lie perc(eivwd "the ridiculous beauty" that brought
atheiiuicit' to this Italian Primitive's style. Ever droll, he
added that "by the fact of this ridiculousness, [they] are
closer to dhe phenomenon that has become dogma Uesus
born of a virgin and the Holy Ghost) than any other virgin
commonly celibate."8s9
Vairaumati-a Marquesan Homologue of the Virgin Mary
Gauigiiin's theosophical views facilitated his mergers of Chrislian
andi non-Western religious figures, which multiplied in
his art aierfi he arrived in the South Pacific. He adapted
b)i)blical paratbles to Oceanian myths and translated Eve and
hie Virgin Mary into Polynesian archetypes-as in 7'e nave
nave lennaa (I)elighqf tdLand) and Ia Orana Maria (We Greet Thee
Maiy). 'Th myth of Vairaumati imitates the prototype of the
Virgin Mary, fiom thle Annunciation to the Assumption. In
the goilache Te Earuru (To Make Love), also known as The
Annunciation, thi angel takes leave of Mary in a cloud of
smoke that rccalls the scene in the Ancien culte mahorie where
Oro rises t(i the heavens as a pillar of fire after Vairaumati
annoinices her pregnancy. 1 ) As the new Eve, Vairaumati
assumtties Ile persona of the mother of Christ' 1 )
Painted ais lie wrote the final draft of "L'esprit moderne et
Ic cathilicism sie," Woman with a Fan commands the authority
of an icon-a deity static on her throne, removed to the
Iraiiqillity of another realm. Her queenly mien distingutishcd
Ithe )ictuire from the outset.92 She is a meditation on
Ihe heavcnly Vairaumati-a MarqUesan homologue of the
Virgin Mary. Hler glow matches the tradition whereby the
mother of( Christ, "like the other forms of the queen of
hcaveti, ha([ the cllorn of the mater fiu gum, the complexion
of golden corn.'" In this context, the token of Hina, the
while f'ealher fan, coild perhaps double (not without huttior)
is a proxy once removed for the dove of the Holy
(;host.
ItI the utpper left corner of Woman with a Fan, blue organic
fotrms hang fino a brown branch, resembling fruit found in
oli er of (;auguin's Polynesian paintings.' 4 They are probably
a muflled cveretration of the apples forbidden to Eve-the
symbol of fertility at the origin of the cycle of man. Typical of
his approach, i Gauguin transferred a well-established Western
conveiion, such as fruit equated with knowledge and fecundity,
to an Oceanian cognate that he suffuses with multiple
power s if siggestion, extending from its biblical sense to the
Ma0ii myth, finally to resonate as a metasymbol of creativity.f
Ih'ic intersection of the narratives of Vairaumati and the
Virgin Mary reach their consummate synthesis in Woman with
a Pan. Gauguiii entwined the identities of these two mortal
women elevated to their respective kingdoms, not to make
Vairauniati into the Virgin Mary but to legitimate her as a
metal)hor of the soul's immortality.
A Parable of Immortality
As his hcalth declined, Gauguin was immersed in contemplating
the fate of the soul and the longevity of art. His near
obsession with his posthumous renown intensified as he
seused hiniseI fnarginalized in a remote corner of the globe.
WOMAN WITH A /AN: PAUL (GAUG.tlN'S HFAVENLY VAIRAUtNATI 563
He felt compelled to ensure that his reputation as the maverick
hero of the Parisian avant-garde would not fade with his
demise. That he wrote three books in the last year of his life
betrays his gnawing fear that he might be in danger of being
forgotten. And he set about making pictures that he hoped
would crystallize the audacity of his innovations. His contributions
had to be comprehensible to his audience if he were
to be remembered for "the right to dare all."
Vested with the emblem of liberty, Woman with a Fan serves
as a beacon to propagate his claims to posterity. As the
summation of the myth of Vairaumati, the figure not only
commemorates the debut of his Tahitian cult themes, she is
also the most human metamorphosis of a cherished motif
from his visual repertoire. Her corporeal transformation in
the myth is comparable to the evolution of the pose, rooted
in Puvis's Hope, that Gauguin modified in consecutive paintings
from 1892 to 1902. The regeneration epitomized in the
heavenly Vairaumati is literally implemented in the pictorial
dynamic through the mutation of the manifold sources that
constitute her identity. Consequently, Woman with a fian exemplifies
the premise of transposition, tying the permutations
of art to the immortality of the soul.
Thus Gauguin embedded meaning into the pictorial field
in Woman with a Fan. The attributes-fan, fruit, throne-are
merely signposts pointing to the mythical identity of the
sitter, while the transformation of motifs and formal elements
integral to the construction of the painting determines its
value as a parable illuminating the creative process. Disparate
components-a patriotic insignia, a Polynesian myth, an exotic
fan, a Byzantine altar, a recent painting-are transformed
with a freedom of handling that contradicts the
inherited traditions and polished detail of the academy. Gaugurn
mingled artistic sources in a freewheeling fashion akin
to his syncretic approach to religion, a theosophical potpourri
of Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and Polynesian ideas
mixed into an unorthodox faith that suited his personal
circumstances. For him, the renewal of art through transposition
became synonymous with that of the soul through
metempsychosis, uniting his aesthetic and religions beliefs in
a parable of immortality. In an era that replaced religion with
art, Gauguin proposed a paradigm that fused them.
For Gauguin art was as deeply subjective as religion. Woman
with a Fan reverberates with nuances, "like dreams, an assemblage
more or less formed from things or thoughts
glimpsed."96 His viewers are empowered to share the wonan's
compelling reverie, emotionally sustained by the abstract
ingredients of color and technique. Through the medium of
the parable, veiled in poetic ambiguity, the painting engenders
a dialogue pertinent to the mysteries of human existence.
Just as Vairaumati represents the individual who attains
immortality in Gauguin's Tahitian pantheon, her
transfiguration in his oeuvre signifies the vitality of his artistic
achievement. Her pictorial reincarnation is the "new link in
the chain" that connects his art to the twentieth century. All
aspects of Woman with a Fan, from its subject to the handling,
conspire to secure Gauguin a place in the continuum of art
history. The synthesis is crncial to his definition of transposition,
where the liberties taken with the art of the past provide
posterity with a benchmark for his accomplishments. At stake
is the premise of his own immortality.

564 ART BII ET,IN S EPT ,EMB ErR 2006 VO1,I'M I XXXVIII N UI M BER 3
June Hargrove is pri'lessor at the University of Malyland, College
Park. Her publications include books on Carrier-Belleuse, the statues
o/ Paris, the Statue of Liberty, and Nationalism and French
Visual Culture, 1870-1914, the last co-edited with Neil McWilhiam.
Her recent articles on Gauguin stem from her forthcoming book
[Department of Ait History and Archaeology, University of Marland,
College Park, Md. 20742, hargTove@umd.edul.
Notes
The nu Icus of this interpretation of Wornan with a Pan was first presented in
my paper "GiaUgUin: Calling the Earth to Witness" at the annual conference
of fih College Art Association, lIos Angeles, Februars 1999. I am indebted to
the following colleagues for suggestions on the manuscript: Ziva Anishai-
Maisels, Elizabeth C. Childs, Stanislas Faure, Antonia Fonderas, Dario Gamboni,Jaunes
Hai-grove, Francoise Heilbrun, Vojtech Jirat-Wasiut iyfiski, Maxime
Prcaiud,Jilia Rosenbloom, Kerstin Thoimas, and Dan IClieeler. And finally, I
wish to thank Marc Gotlieb and Lory Frankel for their insights and suggestions,
which greatly improved the manuscript. I am grateftil to the Centre
Allenand d'Histoir i e I 'Art/Deutsches Foru tni lii Kunstgeschichte, Paris,
fol support during the year ioy research was completed. All translations are
inine, unless otherw,ise indicated in the notes.
1. Paul (Gatguin, Ittrs t Andre Fona(lanas (Paris: L',Echoppe, 1994), 24
(August 1899).
2. The last twenty years have significauthy enriched our understanding of
the coliplexity of the man and the circumstances of his works: see, for
example, (Griselda Pollock, Avant-Garde Gambuts, 1888-1893, Gender andi
Ike Colo al Art Histmy (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992); Abigail
Solonion,codeau, "Going Native, Patl Gauguin and the Invention of
Primitivist Modernism," in The F 'spanding Disi ourse, ed. Norma Broutde
and Mar, Garrard (New York: Icon Editions, 1992), 312-29; Stephen
Eiseonman, Gauguins .Skiii (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997); and
EdIiond Rod, Reeprsenting the South Patifui, Co(lnial Discourse, Cook to
(Gauguin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). James Clifford,
The 1Medua((ent ol"C ulltue.: Twentieth Centuy Ethiiiinography, Literature,
and Ail (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) has been a major
intluence oti the postcolonial studies of Gaugtin.
3. 1The impact of Gaiguin on twentieth-century artists, such as Pablo Picasso,
Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, and the German Expressionists,
is well established; see, lotr example, William Rubin, "Plinfilivism"
in /iventielh-Cenoinr, Ail: A/finity o/ the Ti(ibal and the Modem, exh. cat.,
Mttseum of Modern Art, New York, 1984, 2 sols.; and Paul Gauguin:
Das verlorene Paradies, exh. cat., Folkwang Museum, Essen, 1998.
4. Fian oise Cachin, Gaug'uin (Paris: Hachette, 1989), 218.
5. Elise Eckerinanii, "n Ilutte ionto,te ((liputissar(i t finIidabtIi: Paul Iaigiin (-'
Sim,nnangs/eld an Kunmsthitik und Kunsimarkl (Weiniar: VDG, 2113); Dario
(Gaiiibon, "Gatignin's Genesis of a Picture," bltp://19thcartworldsvide.
oirg/atttumnis113/ atrticles/gattib.lihiud; and Michael Marlais, "In 1891:
Observations on the Nature of Symbolist Art Criticism," Arts Magazine
(I, no. 5 (1987): 88-93, 90.
6. (Correlatioins betwien art and illisic were cotmlion in the nineteenth
critury, related to the theory of synesthesia, advanced by Charles
Batdelaire, notably in his poem "Corresponclances'; see T. R. Rook
i naaker, S- yn/hetisl Art Theo op.s, (Gene is and Nat ure of the Ideas on Art oa
fauaguin and His Cit(le (Amsterdam: Swets en Zeitfinger, 1959), 30. The
Symbolists' interest in musical paradigms was futrther stimulated by the
iteas expressed by the poet Stiphane Mallarrue, as artitculated in "Crise
dc vers," 1886, and "La nIIIsiqtUe et les lettrcs," 1894, in Oeuvrea coin0
hlel, ed. Henri Mondor and G.Jean-Aubty (Paris: Gallimard, 1945).
7. (Gauguin, Lettres e Ienlainas, March 1899, 14, Elie letters wsre a persinal
excliange initiated by Gauguin in response to remarks made by
Fontainas in his "Revuie di tnicts: Art troderne," Meracure e Preane 29
(Janttary 1899): 235-42, reprinted in Lettres it Foantainas, 41-48. Gauguin
had a free subscription to the Mercure (aonlainas, August 1899,
25), whict he read avidly until his death. Don venons-nous? Que sominmes
nous? Ou allons-naus? ( lhetre Do We Come 1romi? Ihiat Are Wr? Where Are
"I, (Going?) (NAlildenstein 561), 1897-98, is in the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts; Georges Wildenstein, Gaug'uin (Pat-is: Les Beaux-Arts, 1964),
hereafter W'
8. lPeiitaiies, 11, August 1899, 24. Vo.jtech Jlirat-'A'asitivfiski, Paul Gauguin
in the Context o/1STinholism (New York: Garland Press, 1978), 201)-207,
considers Gauguin's notion of a parable.
9. Paul Gauguin, "Diverses choses," 1896-97, MS following "Noa Noa,"
Musce ilt Louvre (Orsay), Departement des Arts Graphiques, Pat-is,
206. I am grateful to Monique Nonne, who enabled me to tonsult the
photographic copy of the ILouvre inannscript, now available on CD-
ROM, Paul Gauguin, Gauguin eciivvain, ed. Isabelle Calm (Paris: RMN,
201013).
10. Paul Gauguin to Charles Morice, July 19011, in Gauguin, lAetres de Getan
guin ii sa fe(mne lt a ves aimis, md. Matirice Malingue (Paris: G.rasset,
1946), no. CLXXIA, 305.
11. Michel Panoff et al., Tresors des lies Marquises, exh. cat., Musýe de
l'Hlminme, Paris, 1995, 75-76, but other estimates are higher for precontact
populations. See also Eric Kjellgren, Adorning the World: Art of
the Marquesas Islands, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,
2005.
12. Carol S. Ivory, "Art and Aesthetics in the Marquesas Islands," in Kjellgren,
Adorning the World, 25-38, at 35.
13. Colta Ives et al., The Lure of the Exolic: Gaug,uin in New York Collettions,
exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2002, 139.
14. Gauguin to Mette Gauguin, May 1892, in Gauguin, Lettresa as Pemtie,
no. CXXVIII, 229.
15. Anne Pingeot, "Premier sajour a Tahiti, 1891-1893, la sculpture," in
Gaulguin, Tahiti, lVatelier des tropiques, exh. cat., Galerics Nationales du
Grand Palais, Paris, 2003, and Gauguin, Tahiti, by George T. M. Shackelford
and Claire Freches-Thory, exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
2004, 104-23; and Agn&s Rotschi, "Paul Gauguin et Factt narquisien,"
in Parroff, Tresors des Res Marquises, 88-93.
16. Gautguin to William Mollard, July 1895, iii Gauguin, Lel/wr a sa fkmbne,
no. CLX, 275.
17. Gauguin to Charles Morice, July 1901, in ibid., no. CLXXIV, 304.
18. Georges Le Bronnec, "Les dernicres ann6es," in (Gaugicin, sa vie, son
oeuvre, ed. Georges Wildenstein (Paris: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1958),
189-200, at 192.
19. Ziva Arnishai-Maisels, Gauguin's Religious TheIies (New Yo(Irk: C,arland
Press, 1985), 341.
20. Rotschi, "Gauguin et lart marquisien," 92. The tikis were half an
hour's walk over rugged terrain froni Puaniau, a settlement on the
northeast side of the island.
21. Pail] Gauguin, Leitres de Paul Gauguin a Geosgesl)ani,l de Monfreid, ed.
Victor Segalen (Paris: Georges Cres, 1920), November 1901, ino.
LXXVI.
22. Paul Gauguin, 'Leglise catholique et les temps modernes," 1896-97,
in "Noa Noa," MS included in "Diverses choses," Musee duI Louvre (Orsay)
Departeisent des Arts GraphiqUes, Paris, 273-346, Gauguin ecrril
ain, lols. 141r-177v. The impetus for "L'eglise catholique" was a pamphlet
titled Lejesus historique, a translation by Jules Soons (San
Francisco, 1896) from Gerald Massey, The Natural Genesis, ai Sr(ond Pan
if the Book oJ the Beginnings, Containing an Attemet to Heoaver a(nd Reconslilute
the Lost Origins of the Mthths and M'ysteries, Tylpes and Symbols, Religion,
and Language with lE,gpl for the Moulhpiece and Afriia as the Birthplac
(London, 1883), all of which Carigguin later read.
23. Paul Gauguin, "L'esprit nioderne et le catholicistie," MS St. Lotus Museimn.
See Elizabeth C. Childs, "'Catholicisin and the Modern Mind':
The Painter as Writer in Late Career," in Shackelford and Freclies-
Thors, Gauguin, Tahiti, 2004, 224-41. See also Philippe Verdier, "Un
Mantiscrit de Gauguin: U esprit nioderne et le catholicisme," Tvallrof
Richartz.Jahrbuih 46-47 (1985-86): 273-98.
24. Charles Morice to Gauguin, May 22, 1901, in Gauguin, Leoles d, Paul
Gauguin a Gearges D)aniel de Monfreid, ed. Annie Joly-Segalen (Paris:
Georges Falaize, 1950), 217-18.
25. Amishai-Maisels, Gauguins Religious Theines, 416, 451-53; and Debora
Silverman, Van Gogh and Gauguin, the Search for Satred Arl (New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000), 380-83.
26. Paul Gauguin, Racontars de rapin, ecd.Victor Merlhes, facsimile ed.
(Taravao, Tahiti: Elditions Avant et Apt&S, 1994). TIhere is a paperback
version, ed. Bertrand Leclair (Paris: Mercure de France, 21103).
27. Paul Gauguin, Avan it etAp/rI (Taravao, Tahiti: E ditions Avant et Apt-6s,
1989).
28. Segalen, Lettres a Monfieid, February 1903, no. LXXXII
29. Bengt Danielsson, Gauguin in the South Seas (New York: Doubleday,
1966), 256, mistakenly states that Tohotaua was the "adopted daughter"
of Gauguin's cook, Kahui.
30. Gauguin had abandoned Polynesian titles by the time he reathed the
MarqUesas. The majority of his late works were given titles in the 1903
posthumous exhibition organized by Vollard, btt these were little roic
than descriptive labels, few of whlich are attached to the works today.
The painting is probably Piemme dens on fautruil in the I,'x)osition Paul
Gauguin, exh. cat., Galerie Atiibroise Vollard, Paris, 19113, no. 15.
31. Louis Grelet to Lucas Lichtenhan, curator of the Kunsthalle in Basel,
quoted in Hans Seeker, "Fin Bild ntd seint Vorbild bei Gauguin," At
lanlis: Ldinder, Val5ker Reisen 4 (1932): 445-47, 445. I am gratefil to

Mat io-Aniix',xs \xii 1Linichati, Folkwang Museum, Essel' , for this rexe-r
32. l)Diilcsso, (;ouguitt xi thie Smalh ,Sas, 257, claims that the relationship
bx'vecii Galiguiii and TIxlxtaxa was "intimati," but there is little evidclnx
c o1 a laisolxol lel than a rei'ark in a lettei to Daniclisson fiom
(;I'hl x ieams latci, whereas his caiIr l'i ttr ' to Ichiciit ian indicates
quite the oplpisile, Liteiatlirc o'i tEuiopean iacial stereotypes at they
ilpll tox women ox c2olol is vast; x'ir examples, see n. 2 above, as well as
SmIdcl { .ihxxx, IMi/r,me x and /alholog,i7: Stele,tt/iks of S'xuialiti, Rate and
Modmmixii (Ixhaca, N.Y.: (Cornell University Press, 1 985); ani Adrienne
Clhilds, "I lTix Black Exotic: Tradition aild Eiithiogi aphy in Nineteenth-
0,x1111xN (Iiic'nialisI Alt" (PhD) diss., Uniiersitv of' Marxland, College
PI'mk, 2005).
33. lix Segahln, lI,l/hi i'x Mou'ftid, Maxch 1902, no. LXXVII, and May 1902,
noi. ILXXIX, 6auguin speaks of' his "solitude" and "complete isolation."
34. 1 i(x titles aic listed ii chxlkwisi ordr' lixor xipper left. Douglas Druick
Petc /egcs, x''d "I' Kampopng et la pagodc: Gauguin at l'Exposition
unixiisIlhe de 1889," in (Gaugiti: Axtes dxu (olloque, '1s1ai, xl'Orsav (Paris:
l' .ch' ilit lxouvx'e, 1991 ), 101-42, am 122-23, identified the photograph
Of1 11c sixlix' ixf Vishini by Isidore van Kinsbergen. The objecx t at lower
iighinxix\ blxxe thie Imxk ofi a cxanlvas.
35. Ali cdn d 1xxii i//li d, (itai,Caxtu, (Gidl, Huyxsmams .... ai Odixn ledon (Paris:
J. Cmli, 19G)), no. 3, September 1890, 19`)3. Elizabetli Childs, "Paradise
Rcdlnx: Inixguix, lPlhtogiaphy, and Fin-ide-Sieli Tailiti," in The Ar/ist
xixd /ixr C xmem. .Dol)xroxlh Kosinski (New I lav'n: Yale Universin,
P'es, 1999), 19-41; alid Frai ,oise i leilbtilii, "I,a photog xaphic,
%amce dc's airs"," ill Calignn, Tahiti, 21103, 42-61.
'sex -
"36. Paul (;;I iguix. Almicn xi1l1// m/horie (1892-93), ed. Rer'6 Huiglie, aclsimilc
ud. (Illa.is1 ,La P'alni, 1)x51l), 13. (Gaiguin f1'equently represented
Iliixa. Amni g 1cli' cxamples 'anv of disembodied heads are ihose il
tlh' Sr'/Po/itil t (;i/ox/lxha (W 534), 189ii, Muse'm of Art, Sao Paulo,
Ih1a/il.
37. Dit hfI o/ xoixul (;ouaguio, cxh. (ai., National a(alle'ry of Art, Washington,
D1.C., ;kil l] O I t hislitlc ofCh icagox , 1(988, 217 and 11ceilbrun, ''a
phiohl(gmplxhic'," 58. Foi Noxi \oia, see Nicholas Wadley, (Gouxguioi's Tahiti
(Lnd in:
PIhaidon, 191851, 109-12.
38. Scx,'111xc I limgixie, "Patil Galiguiil and the Muse in the ,Myth of' the
Aixlimx asI )ili',' t ic I'iUorlis/, 4 m miulx i,i: 111/loaiitio u (xlix ixxi/tult et d' siio
moWli, Xl\' NX \ii'
(oilriiig).
lxx (Rome: Axadx'ie de F'aince, Villa Medici, forth-
39. F'. S. C miighill lklidyv, Nia/ive Cull/u in the Maiiiueva's (Honoluhl: Ber-
Hixi IcishlNsho
Museum B'i lclin, 19)23), 293.
401. (;-oig('s ILe' Bionir , "lxvi'lairi' dls Neils," in Wildenstein, Gauguin,
m vir, 20 1 8: and Kjcllgi ci', Aldoring the iorld, cat. no. 73.
41. Six kei, "Fl' lBildl," 116. David Sweetnian, Paul (Gangiiin: A Lif/i (New
Yolk: Siloll and Schustxl, 1995), 50}8, remarks (lie prominence of the
(I icolxi isx'll'. Altlhxugh lhe official sequence ofx the coloxs in the
f xxi Ii xxi( ol 1;ix d IIih' ne ix' the xelxter- and red oil the oxuter i'a,nd-xwas
'sliblishci in ilix' Third Rcpoblic, tlx ieveise is xoninion. Foi example's,
xc'.,1ca -Miclx l Re x,ieali, I, /x'x fles lax R//xim liqui', l'/isloire de lht
W/Im/liqui xi /irxis hx lx velt,v (tl,Maniaotti, (lParis: Assemb6lc Nationale,
200I), 136-37, 112, It5, 17f, 2(94, 2961.
42. Segolc'. Iix'/x/ho x N iolx/id, November 191)1, no. ILXXVL. See Rookimmikc'i,
,i/lhritixl Ill 7Theorio, 239-4), oxi (Gauguin's greatest legacy ol
I Ici iv,' hrccdoilxl.
43. (;auguinIxs,Miooirs, 'xd. Mcilix's. 25-26.
44. A(mioding xI( 'lT'Alsace-l'X ,orii' e Ct 16tat ac'ict des is'prits" (Olernor ih
FIxlmmr 2 1 I D)xcx ibetc 189)71: i, 1- 813), populai opinion iheld that the
miilniry ( ixllicis wcx e 'xershadoiwed i by le triumph of French culture.
Sce hlirtlici ,lexatlacques Blcikic and St`iphane Audoin-Rotizeau, Lit
FIx)ir, lit nioxmx. l gur''tr': 18150-1920 (P}aris: Sidcs, 1995), 156-57.
45. (G,igiuin, f/lxemiixs, ic. NMxllih's, 28.
46. lbid., 26.
47. S'cg;hil', Ixt/hw i ix ,hix/xid, O(toibci 1902, nxo. ILXXXI.
48. miguniiu. Umaxottlx m,x. ed. Mcillr's, 12-13. lix iny seminai oxi Gauguin,
2005, 1(i 1',vnine cncomiragi d me tIo suppose thxat Gautguin adapted
tlhe iolxtx of "uanslptisilioll dart," intrdcix ced by TI'iophile Gautier
in his poixl'us afilc 18,18, llrolably , "Sy xxvplixonii' el blaxic lajetu," subselIiclill
,eNpliblisht'd log'lxhe
lion cmxi-l1plificdl syxcsxh'lix
ill 1'.imoux el mn iirs (Paris, 1872). The collec-
wrldencies lxir the ]ext generation. I ari
grl;ni ltl 1()Ilh rexsx' l a)nli lrc exlensive noies oxi xltie topic.
49. J 'chan c I'cillictI-'isk, I ii , I/Vx ixi'd, (xix hZt01 M*1tio/ x x?i (;au uifxpiix
PSolym,wio Sx,mhiolixm (/\lilt Arbor: UMI Researc' l Press, 1983), 145-46,
xi'si I ii's (;;uuguin's methixd, ii which lie "miustantly quo ted images
hiot] his Iliiouixius wox"s, images whih I the maj ai o xf ty (liie title stood
lox ;Ill idi'x.-" I)ingc'ol , "Prci'nict scijour a1 Talhiti," 115, compares his
i)all1 In,v, k appi oatclixxo Ille piecemeal displays of' the diffrle't cuhures
inl Orc2 1889} E\p[o{sitiol U nkivesclic.
lOANV 111 1 VA, \ ":I P I' GAt GUIN'S IiA\ ENLNh V\ IRAUNI \I 1 565
50. Gauguin, tawontairs, ed. Merfihes. 15-16.
51. Camilh,' issatro, Lettrev 'i soan /ili L,ucien, ed. John Rewald (Paris: Albin
Michel, 1950), 217, Noxember 23, 1893. Richaid Field, "Plagiaire on
criateuir," in Poaul (;augrmn (Paris: Hachette, Collection Genies et
Realit6s, 1961), 139-69.
52. Gauguin, Rarootars, ed. Merlhes, 13.
53. Jacques AotoinC Moerellhotlt, L,es zovages aux [ils do gianud oMi,in. 2 vols.
(1837; reprint, Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 19'7). 1euira Heim, 411iient
Tahiti (lionoluli: Bernice P. Bishop MUseCIAi, 1928), gives a %ariation
of the niyitis recounted by Moecrenhout. See also Robert LeN's, oahi
tians: Mind and Evifierience in the Soriety ilsl/iund (Chicago: Universiti
Chicago Press, 1973).
of
54. Gauguin, Antien (,title mahorie, 13. Gauguin took "lcrleite de la Inatiere"
firont Moerenhout, Leu vxoyago'cx,
\ol. 1, 428.
55. Gauguin, Alnit'iex (-ill(i oaihorie, 29.
56. Ibid., 23-31, as well as in Paul Gauguin, Noa Nx a (1893 versioin), ed.
Jerome Veiain (Paris: Mille et Une Nuits. 1998), 79-82. Gauguin's
knowledge of tii' Ariois Colmes fironlx Moerenhout, Les v111agi'i, sol. 1,
484-99, vol. 2, 129-135.
57. Gauguin, N'oa Aoa (1893), 75, trans. Naomi E. Maurer, The Puiim1il o/
Spirilual 0 llvldom: Tlihe lThoighl and A'i (?/ 111 ment (vall Goo? and Paul (Gailcgmin
(Madison, Wis.: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 19198), 152.
58. Mus6e d'Orsav, Domumentation, dossier on Vairauniati ('A450) ill box
30, photograph of the letter to Paul S'erusiei, dated March 23, 1812.
59. Teiltiet-Fisk, Paxadise Reviitwed, 48, adds that Vairaimnati extends a fihlger
in the gesture of Bhumi,xiripxsmudra (making a point), takell firon
thie Buddhal in the Javanese relief ox Boriobduir, fiom x hii cl Gauglim
firequentil Iboniowed.
60. Gauguin, Anoxix rulte mahiorie, 15. For more oxi the Aiiois, see E. S.
Craighill Handy, PolTorsitto Rpligion (tforrolulu: Bernice Bishop Nhl-
seurn Bulletin, 11)27), 35.
61. Gauguin, Noa Noa (1893), 59: "Ia sen'en e xIi iarbre Ora li apportxxe
de la Luiie sul la Terre par tll pigeon blanc." Although at firines the
white bird seems to evoke the Holy Ghost, here it recalls tihe bird that
brought the branch to Noah's Ark.
62. The variation in tilt, spelling of Vairamiiati in Gauguin's title is considured
unintentional. Shackellord, Gaug,mpinx, Tahiti, 2004, 253, notes that
the wo0nan with a fan resembles Vairun1 ati (see ix. 92 helow).
63. May,i' vxnn Zink Vance, "Giauguin's Polynesian Pantheon as a Visual
Language" (PhD diss., U nivcrsitn of Caliiirnia, Santa Bari ara, 19861.
26(0-61.
64. Paul Ganguin, "A ina fill Aline, i, (ahie' itv dliMW,"l Noles al/ixwx, xxxii suiir
(omlme lex R-i , xomme In vit ioutni, l it de mor'eaux: Journal de enn, fl'u ille,
ed. Victor Mleilhis (Bordeaux: William Blake, 1989), 32. MIciliiis idcnfilies
the fignie oi
fears).
the co\xir as the "llantiscs huniinics" (huniani
65. Teillict-Fisk, Patadise Revi'zved, 123, proposes that the tiki oxi xltii thiotii
represents Oro oi a hlialin't (spirit) and connects the thi'one to the
u/i otomotif. im /m means calabash or alxxiy siiall bowl. GaLingix 's Copies
of the im motif are found in the Loxire mianxiscript "Noa Noa." 1(i68.
See Alfred Gell, lViapyfng in lmaxr7: Tattooing in Pol)v ixesia (Oxford: Clat -
endon Press, 19i)93).
66. Teilliet-Fisk, Paiadise f/eviezved, 123, notes similar patterns on stanics of
I lina and Tefitoxil.
67. The poem appears in the Louxre MS "Noa Noa," 117-23. Accoxding 1to
Victor Segalen, "Gauguin ifalis son dernier d6cor." in Paol G;augxuin.
/'insugr,g dex Matqiuiv s (Pat-is: iMagellan, 2003). 150, lines from this poem
%eri tacked to the shrine that Gauguin erected outside the i'entrance to
the Maison xuljouir.
68. Ainishai-Maisels, (Ganuin's Rlxig'ious Themes, 234-36,
Wasitxifiski,
371, 383,
(auogxxi
and,tliratx
in I/e ( niix' o/ S ibolixi, 275-76.
69. Gauguin, '4 maxxille Almir, " ii.p. "If we aren't I lil beginning in coming
into the world, we must beliexe like the Buddhists that we haie always
existed. Change of skin. [Si nous ne sommes pIMS
all Monde
lx iionmenix'1o/en
it
venoi t I
ftnd c'roire rcomime hes BoudhWes que ntous avons lou{jounK ewais.
Changement i/e /prau .... ]'" There are carlier indications of his intei est
in Buddhism. such as his letter to Lirxxle Bernard, August 18x90, i( G.auxguin,
Let/n,s it ma itemmie, no. CXI, 205, iin which ie refei s to the possibility
of xalln Gogh's next lici "according to the laws of Buddlia [selon la
hix die Boudha]." BPiddhisii and theosoplix were the sutbjects of niam
discussions in Svinbolist xircles fiiom the
Smilr
1880s.
of1"the
Sei Jacqueline
Buddha:
Baas,
Eastern Phloihsol)hy, mol We'stemt .4r1 fiom Mone,t to TodaY
(BerkeleY: Universiti of California Press, 2005).
70. Gauguin, Anieo (till/( ma/horie, 19.
71. See xilx. 22, 23 above.

566 ARt BIiLLEIIN SEP'TEMBtlR 2006 VtIltME LXXXV111 NUMBI,ER i
72. Gauguin to Morice, November 1897, in Gauguin, Letthes ai ma lemme, no.
CI,XVI, 283.
73. Shackelford, (Gauguin, Tahiti, 2004, 167-204; and Silverman, V'an Gogh
and (;Gauin, 373-91.
74. 1e'ilheit-Fisk, Paradise Reoiewed, 124, compares the Vainrumati headboard
to a tombstone. Gilles Beguin, director of the Musee Cernmschi, Paris,
compared Vairtaniati's chair to Chinese "root" furniture.
75. (Gauguin, Non Non, 1893, 76. Vance, "Gauguin's Polynesian Pantheon,"
351. Ih is also the title of an oil painting, And the Gold o/ Ther Bodies (W
559).
76. The one original painting by the Italian inaster that Gauguin indisputably
knew is La Vitirge Ni 17,n/nt en mnujesMi entourts de six anges, ca. 1300,
ill tie Lo(tvre.
77. Anfishai-Maisels, Gaugmins Religious Themes, 236.
78. Massey, The Natural Genesis, 417, states that "the fail is an Egypatian
ideogi aph of spirit, called the khu."
79. Since Samuel Wagstaff, Gaogu in, exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago,
1959, 67, noted the similarity to Hope, the relation has been accepted;
see Jirat-Wasi utyfi ski, Gauguin, in the Context qo'f Tmbolism, 273; Teilhet-
Fisk, Paiadise Rev'iewed 48; Vance, "Gauguin's Polynesian Pantheon,"
351; D)ruitk atid Zegers, "L.e Kampong et la pagode," 340-41; arid
Aniishai-Maisels, Gauguin s Religious Themes, 382, who also discusses this
in connection ti tote influence of Egy ptian murals.
80. Shackeltord, (Gaug-un, Tahiti, 2004, 182-83. Aimee Brown Price, Pierre
Pilois de Chavannes (New York: Rizzoli, 1994), 237, attributes Gauguin's
multiple borrowings from PuVsi, Coupled with verbal denials of having
tonte so, to ani "anxiety of influetce"
81. Gauguin, Ramontlan, ed. Merlh&s, 28 (see i. 44 above).
82. Among other works that stein front Hope ate Cleela1tra Pot, 1889, Van
Goghi Museum, Amsterdam; The Seaweed Gatherers (W 349), 1889, Musetun
Folkwang, Essen; artd Still Liie with Hope and Suntflowri- (W 604),
19011.
83. (tauguigo, RacontaIs, ed. Merlhes, 12; and Gauguin to Fontainas, March
1899, in Gauguin, LettUees n7 saftmine, no. CLXX, 293; also Gauguin, Leti
Irss i Ihontainas, 10.
84. rinis de C'avannes, exh. cat., Galeries dct Grand Palais, Paris, 1976, cat.
tits. 90-92. Puvis painted two versions of Holm, one clothed, exhibited
in the 1872 Salon, now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, and the
mide, tniw at the Miusee d'Orsa'. Andre Michel, Poins d/ Chavannes
(Paris: Renaissance du Livre, 1911), 54, claims that the negative recep-
tion of Hope remained a topic of bitterness for the painter to the end
of his days.
85. Rneontars, ed. Merlhes, 12.
86. Mdericure de Franee 13 (February 1895): between 128 arid 129. Douglas
Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, Van Gog/ and Gauguin: The Studio of the
South, exh. cat., Art Institute of Chicago, arid Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam,
2001, 345-46, fig. 18, reproduce a photograph by L aurent
Vizzavona, no. 41428, of a lost Gauguin monotype from 1894-95 of
another seated nude inspired by Hope. They describe, 350, Hope as a
"personal talisman" for Gauguin that carried associations with van
Gogh. I would like to thank them here for help with the illustrations.
87. Wayne Andersen, Gauguin's Paradise Lost (New York: Viking, 1971), 95-
111, at 104, posits that the willfItl misinterpretation of Puvis's Hope as a
young girl displaying a flower had earlier been the impetus for Loss oe
l zigi0nity (NA' 412), 1891, where Gauguin used the conceit of anl iris, illstead
of a lily, to denote the deflowering of tIle maideil as the prelude
to death.
88. Gauguin to Morice, JUly 1901, in Gauguin, Lettresa saetmme, no.
CLXXIV, 299-303, trans. Herschel B. Chipp, Theories Yf Iodern Art
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 66.
89. Gauguin, Racontars, ed. Merlhes, 21.
90. Ic once nave fenua (W 455) is in the Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki,
Japan, and Ia Orana Maria (W 428) is in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York. The hut in the oil painting Vairaumalt 7i iOa (Vairaumati
Is Her Name) recurs in the gouache e Ensruru, in the Museum of
Fine Arts, Springfield, Mass., arid appears again in Ancien culle mahorie,
29. Ariishai-Maisels, Gaugin's Religious Themes, 383. See also Linnea
Dietrich, "A Study of Symbolism in the Tahitian Painting of Paul Gatguin:
1891-1893" (PhD diss., University of Delaware, 1973), 111.
91. JitatX-Wasitttyfiski, Gauguin in the Context ojiSV'imbolism, 275-76, 333-36;
and Vance, "Gauguin's Polynesian Pantheon," 339, 345-48.
92. Shackelford, Gaug-in, Tahiti, 2004, 253, "the woman's leaning posture
harks back ... most notably to Sairumati, who reigns like an iinaginarN
queen, over a golden realm.'
93. Massey, The VNatural Genesis, 480. In Britain, corn is what Americans call
wheat.
94. One example of this is La recolte (Harvest) (NA'565), in the Hermitage,
St. Petersburg.
95. As noted by Teilhet-Fisk, Paradise Reviewed, 48, Gauguin used both
Vairaumrati and mangoes to signils.' artistic creativity.
96. Gauguin, Rtuontars, ed. Merlhes, 12. See n. 48 above.

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TITLE: |DdWoman with a Fan|DD: Paul Gauguin’s Heavenly
Vairaumati-a Parable of
SOURCE: The Art Bulletin 88 no3 S 2006
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WN: 0624404407008
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