Today, Paul Gauguin is one of my favorite masters, but this positive feeling took almost ten years to develop. When I was studying in high school, I first saw Paul Gauguin’s work. I still remember the first painting that I saw was “Two Tahitian Women” (see picture 1). Frankly, I didn’t like his work very much, because his work didn’t fit my taste in art. Gauguin’s painting is very decorative and abstract, not very realistic. At that time, I preferred realistic work, such as Da Vinci’s drawings, as well as other realistic artists’ work such as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Rubens, which I studied by copying. While I was still in high school, I realized mostly I had only a basic technical training. It was really hard for me to learn any drawing skills from Gauguin, more precisely, from “Two Tahitian Women”. I believe I could have learned a lot of skills from his sketches, but it was a pity that I had never had an opportunity to see his sketches at that time. Therefore, I was not interested in his work very much. That was the first impression I had of Paul Gauguin.

　　Three years later, I was a college student in the best art college in China, Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Now that I was not a young boy any more and had a great artistic atmosphere around me, I started to think seriously about artistic issues. I knew that Paul Gauguin was one of the greatest masters in the world. So I started to ask myself why and how his work is great and how he became such a master. In the art library, I found many art books where I could see a lot of his paintings, including oil paintings and sketches. At first, I didn’t see any of his sculptures or ceramics, probably because I did not pay any attention to them. At that time, I already had pretty good skills in drawing and sculpting, so my focus started to change and grow. As I was getting older, I got a much better understanding of art. Of course, I started to like Gauguin’s work, but to be frank, still not too much because I only saw copies of his work, rather than originals, and also because I had not yet looked at his sculpture.

　　Last year, I really started to love Gauguin’s work from the bottom of my heart. When I saw his original painting of “Two Tahitian Women” in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was totally shocked. It was a really fantastic work. My feeling was totally different from the one I had had ten years ago. I must say that I had been cheated and disappointed by seeing just the prints of his work for such a long time. In the original, the colors were wonderful and powerful. I regretted that I had not seen his original work earlier. From that moment on, Paul Gauguin became a very important name to me, and I had a strong desire to get to know more about his work and his life.

　　So far, I still have not seen any originals of his sculptures and ceramics. But by reading his journals and art books about his 3-dimensional work, I have learned a lot. His work has inspired me to change my ways to think about my own work. In the following paper, I will analyze and discuss how his work has changed my thinking about my own work and my experience in four specific ways.

　　First of all, Gauguin’s work presents a lot of questions. For example, he directly asks questions on his canvas, such as “Where are we going?” (see picture 2). To me, his work asks more questions than it answers. My art training had been much more about representing “reality” and trying to find answers to express the natural world. But Gauguin seemed to have a different approach to his art which inspired me to change the direction of my work.

　　At CAFA, I made a lot of realistic sculptures of the human figure (see pictures 3 and 4), but soon after I came to Alfred, I began to make self-portraits of my own head. This kind of work is somewhat like Gauguin’s self-portraits in ceramics. His vessel with his face is my favorite piece (see picture 5). His use of color is none too close to nature -- all the red and violets seared by bursts of flame, like the glimmering in the eyes, where a painter’s mental struggles all take place. The red glaze runs off from the top just like blood, which is not representative of nature. More over, he made this self-portrait as kind of a pitcher, with no ears. All these non-realistic, very unusual elements give me the feeling that he is trying more to ask questions than to answer them. His approach inspired me seriously to reconsider about my work.

　　When I first came to Alfred, I made a lot of ceramic self-portrait sculptures (see picture 6). Even before I had seen Gauguin’s work, my original inspiration was that I thought doing this kind of work was a way to communicate with my self in a strange environment, just like writing journals. I did lots of self-portraits with different expressions and different shapes in different materials. After half a year, I stopped making these sculptures when I was reminded of a Chinese artist who had painted some self-portraits with frozen smiles in the 1980’s. His work is not just about his face, of course; it is really about the situation of average Chinese people in a culture that was undergoing many deep and disturbing changes at the end of the Mao era and the beginning of the “opening up to the West”. In other words, his self-portraits stood for something more than just himself; they were really about a particular time and particular state of Chinese culture. Outwardly, the painting looks like a smiling face, but inside, we can feel a lot of pain and stress. Compared to his work, mine seemed to be too representational. I felt that I was limited by reproducing the natural world too closely. I didn’t think this direction was promising. It lacked ideas, power, or relationship to the word beyond the physical. So I really want a change.

　　Gauguin’s self-portrait pottery (see picture 5) comes from different motivations. He didn’t merely imitate nature, but presented questions. In the article “Brittany-The Ceramics-Martinique” by Claire Freches-Thory, I read that the lack of ears and the bloodied places on the head were maybe a reference to Vincent Van Gogh’s famous self-portrait with his bandaged head and one ear missing (see picture 7). Maybe this piece was trying to say that we are all wounded men. This really inspired me to start to change my work. In his painting “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” (see picture 2), he presents several big questions. These inspired me to ask myself, “Where am I right now?” I think this question is more important to me than those three questions right now, because once I know where I am, it will be easier to identify who I am. For example, right now, I am in America; I realize that I am a foreigner, a Chinese – just as Gauguin was an outsider in the South Seas. From my vantage point, I can see my own culture more fully. I feel the same in relationship to the art realm. When I get to know more precisely my place, it will be easier to identify myself, to understand the work I am making in relation to the work of excellent artists. Then I will be able to better figure out how I can make progress, what and how I should and could learn from others.

　　Second, I want to talk about art and craft. My experience and my education in China biased me against craft, but Gauguin’s ceramic work changed my mind. I come from Tangshan, which is called the ceramic capital of the northern part of China. Generally, in China, most people think ceramics is craft or low art. When I was growing up in Tangshan, I didn’t have any interest in ceramics, just because I never thought it was “art.” In college, I made a lot of realistic figurative sculptures made first in clay and then cast in bronze or other materials. In my final year, I focused on clay sculptures although I still thought ceramics was a low art, compared to cast or carved sculptures.

　　Gauguin’s work changed my attitude toward ceramics. Most of his ceramic works are very rough (see pictures 8). It seemed as if he didn’t care about the craft of ceramics. For example, there are several crackles on this piece, which has very rough glazes. Mostly he just sculpted, and his ceramic pieces were fired by others. Looking at these pieces (see pictures 9), I can see that Gauguin probably didn’t want or need to control his glazes a lot. His glazes are very loose, just as his pictorial images on ceramics are freely painted, with big, fast gestures (see pictures 10). It would seem that nobody thinks about him as a “craft” artist. I can see now that not only was he a great painter, but also he used clay as an important medium to convey his pure and essential feelings. Because this art/craft issue is still interesting to me, I think that if I could ask him a question face to face right now, I would ask, “Do you think there is any significant difference between art and craft?” I imagine that his answer probably would be, “I don’t care about that. I am sufficiently confident in my work that I can use any medium I choose – I don’t care if it is oil, wood, stone, or clay, and so on. I don’t pay attention to insignificant things like whether I’m doing art or craft.” I hope I am speaking accurately for Gauguin; basically, I agree with his ideas. Gauguin’s work encouraged me to try my best to use clay to convey my artistic ideas instead of wasting time thinking about the differences between art and craft.

　　Third, I would like to talk about live models. As we all know, Gauguin made a lot of oil paintings in Tahiti, as well as a lot of sketches of live models. Some of the models he used over and over for a long period of time, such as Tehamana, who inspired him to finish some great works. For example, the “Head of a Tahitian Woman with a Standing Female Nude on the Reverse” is a wood carving, which he made after first making a lot of drawings (see picture 11). In his article “The First Tahitian Years,” the art critic, Charles F. Stuckey writes, “The careful carving of the face recalls Gauguin’s early efforts as a portrait sculptor, and this head should be understood as an extension of his work in ceramics. Tehamana, has become pregnant, this event may have motivated him to carve this head” (273).

　　Like Gauguin, I also used to use the same model for a long time. I would draw some sketches and then make sculptures. When I first saw a model, I could just get limited information, such as the shape of the body, the color of the skin, and so on. These were all external things which were easily visible. As I drew, I would have conversations with the model which was very important. For one thing, I could make the model more relaxed, so I could focus on my work instead of being distracted by his or her intensity. For another thing, by means of conversation, I could get a better understanding of the model’s personality and character, and then I could get some specific information about that one person which made him or her different from others. This particular information inspired me to make my work more meaningful rather than just a visual representation of that model. This kind of information was impossible to get at first sight, but it gradually grew after working with the same model during many studio sessions.

　　Gauguin, too, was always drawing from live models, and I don’t think it was just a need for technical training for him; he also could get continuous inspiration from them. Because models are live human beings, they have very individual emotions which are different from others. Gauguin’s work encouraged me to keep on drawing from live models while I make ceramics or sculptures, because these can bring me inspiration for my work.

　　Last but not least, I want to talk about art and life. Paul Gauguin is a great master, but he had a very hard and uncommon life where he was concerned with deep, symbolic issues like death, supernatural experience, and spiritual ideas. His artistic experience encouraged me to keep persevering on my road of art. If I could have the opportunity to have a conversation with him face to face, the last and the most important question I would like to ask him is, “Why and how did you start to paint?” I think this is a very important issue, because the motivation of how artists start their art life will impact their choices when they have conflicts between art and life, art and jobs, art and other subjects.

　　Let me use my own experience as a case to explain what I want to say. When I was a kid, I was always getting in trouble and breaking rules: fighting with other kids, swimming in unsafe ponds, climbing tall trees, and so on. At that time, I was too young to be aware of danger, and my mother was always worried about me. So one summer, my mother sent me to a summer class of Chinese painting, which included approximately 30 students. We paid tuition, which cost 10 yuan per month per person (only $1.20, but expensive in China at that time). My mother’s intention was to let me have something to do instead of going to dangerous places and to let the teacher take care of me. When I went to this class, I realized that I loved art very much. From then on, art changed my character, even my life. Since then, I only fought twice with other kids, but sometimes I still take risks, but only acceptable ones.

　　Six years after that first summer class, I was admitted to Tangshan No.1 High School which is one of the best high schools in China. There, I made a serious choice. In China, we have a very different system of education. In order to get into university, we have to pass the national exams, which are very competitive and demanding. The higher your grade, the better the university you can get into. At that time in Tangshan, my mathematic skills were very good, and I competed in national Olympic Mathematic Games. In high school, Chinese students have very tight schedules; this means I had no time to do many things that I wanted to do. No matter what, I had to find a focus, that is, I had to make a choice of careers at the end of high school in order to take the exams for university. Between art and mathematics, finally, I chose art, specifically, sculpture, because art had already changed my life forever. It was really painful to give up mathematics, and choosing art meant that I had to study outside of class, pay for art lessons, and risk not getting into a good university – but I worked very hard and was the first student in 40 years to be admitted to the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing from Tangshan.

　　My struggles and my choices make me want to know Gauguin’s motivation to be an artist. Before he started painting, Gauguin had had several different jobs, such as a sailor, bank broker, and so on. The main reason he changed his jobs probably was money. According to the chronology written by Isabelle Cahn in The Art of Paul Gauguin, even “in July, 1884, in need of money, Gauguin sells his life insurance policy at a 50% loss” (7). But he never thought about giving up his art. Maybe painting was the way he earned money, but I don’t think it was the main reason. If he just wanted to paint for money, he could have painted some custom-made works to cater to customers who would pay more money; in other words, he probably could have found easier ways to paint for money, but he didn’t. In one example, for instance, he painted a girl’s face in bluish-white, rather than natural tones. At that time, it was hard for most people to accept this kind of non-realistic approach, which means he could not get good sales. But the truth is that he never changed the style of his work just for money. So we can come to the conclusion that he must have had his own artistic aspiration, which always pushed him to paint, to sculpt. Even though he was always troubled by lack of money, he never stopped painting or making art.

　　Of course, the only person who knows the exact answer to my question has gone to another world, so we can not get to know the true answer right now. I am not sure if his life-long pursuit of art had a close relationship with his original motivation to be an artist, but his artistic experience encouraged me to think about my own art life more seriously. Gauguin’s spirit of perseverance toward painting encourages me to keep working on the road of art forever.

　　Paul Gauguin mostly lived far away from his home in Europe and from the place in Denmark where his wife and children lived. I think he probably tried to be a good husband and father, but he was unable to be a typical family man. When he stayed in Tahiti, he often mailed paintings back to his home in order to let his wife sell them to support the family. But mostly, he moved far away from normal responsibilities. He left his home culture, and he made a lot of explorations of primitive and exotic cultures. His works were fundamentally hybrids that reflected his wide range of knowledge. I believe that the example of Gauguin will influence and encourage me to work hard, to try my best to explore new worlds, and to push the boundaries of art to create something new.

Hongwei write in Alfred

August, 2006

　　Bibliography

　　All articles cited are from the following source:

　　Brettell, Richard, Francoise Cachin, Claire Freches-Thory, and Charles F. Stuckey with

　　assistance from Peter Zegers. The Art of Paul Gauguin. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1988.