Gauguin and Martinique

This dissertation is the first critical study of Paul Gauguin's Martinique period and the paintings which resulted from his trip to the Caribbean. The conclusions of the dissertation establish that (1)Gauguin made the trip to the Caribbean at a crucial time in the development of his art, (2)the Martinique experience stimulated his production of large-figure paintings, and (3)the Martinique works contain early statements of themes and imagery which reappear, recast and clarified, in Gauguin's later work. Analysis of the Martinique works and Gauguin's Martinique experience is based on an examination of several bodies of material. The primary sources for the study consist of the paintings made by Gauguin, the extant drawings which are related to these paintings, and the letters which Gauguin wrote from the Caribbean. Secondary sources include materials from the travel literature of the Caribbean in the nineteenth century and particularly the literature describing nineteenth-century Martinique, including archival material and newspapers of the period. A brief study of the experience and writings of Lafcadio Hearn, an American novelist who was in Martinique at the same time, further illuminates Gauguin's perceptions of Martinique's people and landscape. Careful comparison of Gauguin's paintings with descriptions and illustrations of Martinique and with the landscape itself has made it possible to identify the painter's motifs. With this information it becomes clear that Gauguin's vision of Martinique was selective and detached. This aspect of his Martinique works has significance for the study of his entire oeuvre. The works of Gauguin's companion, Charles Laval, are examined in the first of two appendices. The second appendix consists of a review of two of the attribution problems which have, in the past, complicated the study of Gauguin's Martinique works.