Западноевропейское искусство от Хогарта до Сальвадора Дали
Шрифт:
Paul Gauguin lived a life that reads like a classic tale of the misunderstood, and uncompromising artist, searching for verities against all odds. He was born in Paris and four years of his childhood lived in Peru (he was partly of Indian origin); six years of his youth he spent as a sailor and was incurably drawn to the exotic and the faraway.
For Gauguin painting itself became identified with his wanderlust and drew him away from all his daily associations. In 1883 he gave up his business career and his bourgeois existence to devote his life to art. Gauguin was convinced that European urban civilisation was incurably ill. His life was nomadic; he moved back and fourth between villages in Brittany and the island of Martinique. Impoverished, deadly ill, and in trouble with the law, Gauguin died on the Marquesas Islands.
Gauguin's departure from Western artistic tradition was prompted by the rebellious attitude that impelled his break from middle-class life. But Gauguin, too, was not an Impressionist at heart. He sought art using ideas rather than the tangible world as a starting point. In this he was influenced by the artist Emil Bernard and by the Symbolist poets Rimbault and Baudelaire. Joining him in renouncing naturalism were the Symbolists, and van Gogh.
Gauguin renounced the formlessness of Impressionist vision and recommended a return to the
In Oceania Gauguin was influenced only to a limited degree by the art of the natives with whom he lived. He took his flattened style with its emphasis on brilliant colour to the South Seas with him, and fitted into it the people whose folkways and personalities attracted him. The attitudes in which he drew and painted them still derive from Impressionist vision. In The Day of the God, of 1894, a happy nude woman and her two children rest at the water's edge below the towering image of the god in the background. But while the poses are free in the Western tradition, the contours have been restored, as continuous and unbroken as in Egyptian or Archaic Greek Art.
Before his death Gauguin said, «I wanted to establish the right to dare everything… The public owes me nothing, since my pictorial oeuvre is but relatively good; but the painters who today profit from this liberty owe me something.» So indeed they did, especially Matisse, but no more than Cubism and abstract movements owe to the pioneer researches of Cezanne.
Make sure you know how to pronounce thefollowing words:
Paul Gauguin; Duamier; Degas; Breton; Brittany; Oceania; van Gogh; Egypt; Archaic; Marquesas; Tahiti; Peru; Jacob; Martinique; bourgeois; Rimbault.
Vision After the Sermon – «Видение
The Day of the God – «День Бога»
I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. Paul Gauguin began painting as a professional.
2. In 1880 Gauguin devoted his life to business career.
3. Gauguin was convinced that European urban civilisation was incurably ill.
4. Gauguin painted the Vision After the Sermon in 1879.
5. The poses in Gauguin's paintings are as continuous and unbroken as in Egyptian or Archaic Greek Art.
6. Gauguin recommended a return to the Old Masters.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. What did Paul Gauguin do early in life? How old was Gauguin when he began painting? What style did Gauguin absorb? Where did he exhibit his works from 1879 to 1886?
2. Why was Gauguin's life nomadic?
3. What did Gauguin renounce and what did he recommend? What did Gauguin seek? What is depicted in the Vision After the Sermon? How did Gauguin outline the figures? What is the subject of this painting? What did Gauguin depict in the background? What did Gauguin show in the foreground at the right? What did it presuppose?
4. What did Gauguin take to the South Seas with him?
5. What is represented in The Day of the God?
6. What did Gauguin say before his death?
III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:
to begin painting as a amateur; to identify painting with; bourgeois existence; European urban civilisation; nomadic life; the departure from Western artistic tradition; the rebellious attitude to; to break from middle-class life; to renounce the formlessness of Impressionist vision; to presuppose Western perspective; the art of the natives; flattened style; to outline figures with clarity; to restore the contours.
ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:
ассоциировать живопись с; бегство от европейской городской цивилизации; бунтарское отношение к; воссоздать контуры; четко обозначить фигуры; искусство туземцев; разрыв со средним классом; критиковать отсутствие формы в картинах импрессионистов; буржуазный образ жизни; кочевая жизнь; плоскостной стиль.
iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.
iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:
a) civilisation; amateur; existence; rebellious; emphasis;
b) defiant; accent; non-professional; being; culture.
IV. Here are descriptions of some of Gauguin's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.
1. In the background Jacob is depicted wrestling with the angel.
2. A happy nude woman and her two children rest at the water's edge.
a. The Day of the God
b. Vision After the Sermon
V. Translate the text into English.
В истории искусства имя Поля Гогена связывают с символизмом, получившим в конце XIX – начале XX вв. название примитивизм. Несмотря на то, что Гоген стал систематически заниматься живописью довольно поздно, ему удалось выработать собственную манеру письма. Разочарованный в европейской цивилизации, Гоген бежал в экзотические страны. Природа и жизнь туземных племен стали источником его творческого вдохновения. Гоген сознательно пришел к примитивизации формы, стремясь приблизиться к художественным традициям туземного искусства. В общении с первобытной природой Гоген хотел обрести иллюзорный покой. Создав стилизацию таитянского искусства, Гоген вызвал интерес к искусству неевропейских народов.