PAUL GATJGUIN.*
THE tragedy of Paul Gauguin's life was mostly his own fault. That tragedy is so much the darker. Even if the world had understood him, had paid for his genius with praise and hard cash, he would have been unhappy, restless, "a little boy lost." He never grew up, because he never learnt that neglect and false promises are common dealings, that a living genius is a fool, and sometimes a dangerous fool. There were heavy days when disillusion taught him to expect disillusion ; but afterwards, at the least good turn of his luck, he would hang up again between himself and reality a curtain of thin hopes, the next week or month to be rent. And then, in the cold, he would despair again for a moment. "There is ever the great remedy at the end.. . . " he would write to his patient, sympathetic, troubled Daniel. "When I go to bed at night I say to myself—one more day gained, to-morrow I may be dead." Or he would humble himself, the artist who held the world in contempt, who had left it to live out his work in Tahiti and die in the Marquesas. "It is hard to beg. Could you not see Meilheurat, show him my letter if necessary, and ask a thousand francs from him ? . . . So many people are protected because their weakness is known and they know how to ask. No one has ever helped me, for they thought me strong, or I have been too proud. Now I am cast down, feeble, half-exhausted by the merciless struggle. I kneel and lay aside all pride. I'm nothing but a failure." And there was that letter before his attempted suicide. "If I receive nothing by the end of October, I shall have to make my decision. Only it would have been so much better to have told me two years ago what I could expect ; it would have spared me so much horrible mental and physical suffering. . . . Whatever happens I blame no one—and they cannot say that I have not had patience and energy." He ended that letter with advice to Monfried, who was to him "good, good as its the good bread," with advice on the technique of sculpture. Then 126 francs arrived and death could wait. But when those 126 francs were exhausted he went into the mountains and took arsenic, but whether the dose was too strong, or the vomiting counter- acted the poison, he did not know. After a night of terrible suffering he returned home. And he starts work again. In his letters is revealed again and again this awful, hopeless optimism ; awful, because it made the fall to reality so awful ; hopeless, because it expected too much of the world. And when the world disappointed him, Gauguin, encumbered with misery, accused the Universe. "Surely in the heavens I must have some enemy." He knew all the see-saw emotions of the man who is lonely because he will not grow up to cynicism. Now he confidently prophesies his fame ; now he writes : "I want only silence, silence and again silence. Let tne die quiet and forgotten, or if I must live, let me live quiet • The Lettere of Paul Gauguin to Georges Daniel de Mee/Tied. Translated by Huth Pielkove. Foreword by Frederick O'Brien. Lilustratect., London Heinemann. 1,8a. n4.1 and forgotten still. What difference does it make whether I was the pupil of Bernard or Serusier ? If I have done beautiful things, nothing can tarnish them, and if I have done trash, why gild it and deceive people as to the quality of the goods ? " But even in a moment of deep depression his faith in himself is not altogether broken. "Perhaps I have no talent, but—all vanity aside—I' do not believe that anyone makes an artistic attempt, no matter how small, without having a little—or there arc many fools." That is a humble faith, held on humble grounds, but it is a faith—and it is the most humble that he proclaims. Elsewhere he may speak of himself as nothing but a failure, but he speaks of life and not of art.
Altogether Gauguin was a queer, irresponsible creature— insane, if you like—not to be judged by the work-a-day standards. "And anyhow children do not bother me," he wrote in one letter, "because 'I abandon them,' and I am a scoundrel of the worst sort who has deserted his wife and children.' What do I care ! " ; and again in another letter : "Besides the four who bear my name there are other women and children who have the right to it ; and if I am famous after my death, perhaps they will say : Yes, Gauguin had a large family, he was a patriarch.' What a bitter joke . . . what does it matter ? Let us leave the dirty bourgeoisie— even if they are our own children—in their dirty place and finish the work we have begun." It is a matter of point of
view. You may ask, what is art to the happiness of one human being ? But the artist may ask, what is the un-
happiness of a few dull human people to one work of art ?
Gauguin answered bluntly, cruelly and triumphantly ; and Gauguin suffered. He was robbed, laughed at, ostracized, envied. He became a savage and went naked. He was poor ; he was ill ; he died alone, and his grave is lost. But Gauguin was a great painter. This is not the opportunity to speak of his art. The half-tone reproductions in this volume
are poor reminders. They have been objected to because, to give Gauguin without his colour is to give Hamlet without
the Prince of Denmark. But that surely is better than the
almost inevitable alternative of Hamlet with the wrong Prince of Denmark. Mr. O'Brien has adequately outlined
the true but legendary life of Gauguin, the stockbroker, who
left money, wife and home, and at last civilization, to follow his art, in disgust with " cette stile Europe." He has
connected and explained the letters. The translator, also, has done her business sympathetically, although with expurgations. To those, therefore, who cannot read the French, this Anglo-American edition is the best second-best that can be hoped for.
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