Gauguin: Maker of Myth ed. by Belinda Thomson (review)

intellectual and ethical scaffolding that enabled them to move away from both fascism and fervent Marxism. In interwar anarchist newspapers and magazines, debates about population control—even eugenics—contraception, abortion, and “free sex” dovetailed with debates about the role of women in a recently industrialized society. Not unsurprisingly for a male-dominated group, “anarchists were ambivalent about feminism and feminist goals of gender equality” (37). Yet some of their most notorious and brilliant avatars were women. In 1923, the trial of Germaine Berton created a popular female martyr to the cause of anti-patriarchy. Berton had shot a high-ranking member of the extreme-right-wing Action française. She then tried to kill herself, but was arrested, and brought to trial. The newspapers competed with each other in publishing sketches and narratives of a small, attractive young woman, defiant in her admission of guilt. The jury found her innocent of this crime passionnel, thus providing an icon to both the political and the avant-garde wings of the loosely united anarchist movement. Her story, though, still left open the nettlesome question of where women fit into the anarchist ideology. Sonn describes how, as Europe staggered from the Great War only to stumble toward an even greater conflagration, a politically weakened but intellectually vibrant movement tried to bring sense to a forgetful continent. Amherst College (MA) Ronald C. Rosbottom THOMSON, BELINDA, ed. Gauguin: Maker of Myth. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2010. ISBN 978-0-691-14886-1. Pp. 255. $55. This book is the catalog of an exhibit of Paul Gauguin’s works, held at the Tate Modern Gallery in London in 2010 and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in 2011, where this reviewer had the opportunity to see it. Many of the artist’s most famous paintings and sculptures from museums around the world were loaned for this exhibit, and all are reproduced in color in the accompanying book. The text includes seven essays by art scholars dealing with important aspects of Gauguin’s inspiration. The displayed works themselves are divided into eight groupings, and each of these is preceded by an introductory analytical essay. The image of the artist that emerges is one of great complexity. It is impossible to reduce Gauguin to a few simple formulas. There are too many seeming contradictions in his life, personality, and creations. Perhaps the most blatant is between the idealizing and cynical sides of his vision, between his pursuit of a spiritual dimension beyond the surface of reality and the coexistent realism in his depiction of humanity and nature. In her opening essay, Belinda Thomson studies the essential role of mythmaking and narrative in Gauguin’s works. This theme is developed in different directions by the other contributors. Gauguin’s most determined effort was in the creation of a myth around himself. He delighted in presenting an image of himself as a savage, a rebel against Western civilization, a “Mohican” (see Vincent Gille’s essay). He also fashioned a myth of primitive peoples, reminiscent of Rousseau, as embodying an innocence, purity, and freedom lost by humans living in modern capitalistic society (see the essays by Linda Goddard and Philippe Dagen). At the same time, Gauguin was ready to undercut these same ideal images by deflating his own self-aggrandizement and showing how the residents of 1186 FRENCH REVIEW 85.6 the exotic lands in which Westerners seek a refuge have already lost their innocence due to colonial expansion. Equally problematic is his attitude toward religion . He scoffs at the institutions of organized religion, yet he displays a sincere admiration for Jesus Christ. He makes of the crucifixion of Jesus a symbol of his own sufferings and frustrations. In his Tahitian paintings he often includes a statue of a native deity to indicate the presence of mysterious unseen forces in the world. These forces are sometimes associated with female figures who appear to embody a kind of eternal feminine. As with all aspects of Gauguin’s art, one has a sense of deeper meanings that remain indefinable and ultimately beyond the spectator’s intellectual reach. The essays in this volume also reveal the literary dimension of Gauguin’s inspiration...