The Listening Eye: Paul Gauguin's Primitive Tales

With June Hargrove, University of Maryland. Gauguin’s 1902 Contes barbares (Primitive Tales) aligns the fate of the dying Oceania with his own imminent death. This enigmatic masterpiece, seen in the context of Gauguin’s art in the Marquesas during the last eighteen months of his life, marks the culmination of his artistic journey as a spiritual quest that took him from Brittany to the South Pacific. The painting transcends surface reality through an appeal to the senses and offers the viewer a glimpse of the truth behind appearances.