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

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

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