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Article: Multiple cultures meld in sculpture by Gauguin: Artist introduced global perspective.(Arts)(Art)
- Article from:
- The Washington Times (Washington, DC)
- Article date:
- November 24, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I am seeking to set something more natural above corrupt civilization, with the primitive as my starting point.
- Paul Gauguin in a letter to Theo van Gogh, circa 1889-90
In the letter he sent Theo van Gogh, Paul Gauguin could have been paraphrasing Jean Jacques Rousseau, the French philosopher who believed "natural man" to be the ideal human. Rousseau thought the "noble savage" was the holder of all wisdom - and this belief, according to Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden exhibit curator Valerie Fletcher, filtered down to Gauguin (1848-1903) through French romantic literature.
Gauguin, thought by friends to be a renegade artist because ...