Part 4 (1/2)

In the second place, Bernard's arguuin, who after 1888 painted those nificent pictures _Le Christ Jaune, Le Christ Vert_ and _La Vision apres le Sermon_[4] and carved the two superb bas-reliefs _Soyez Amoureuses et vous serez Heureuses_ and _Soyez Mysterieuses_ Moreover, the careful reader of Van Gogh's letters to his brother will find that throughout '88 and '89 Bernard stood in relation to Gauguin as a pupil to a master Finally, even if Bernard's contention be partially true and if his own essays did induce Gauguin to reject the last vestiges of Irasp of Synthetic Syuin i

It is quite impossible to trace to Cezanne's essays in Synthetic In of either Bernard or Gauguin Cezanne, later on, even went so far as to assert that Gauguin had misunderstood him Therefore it is clear that the opinions of AS Hartrick and of Maurice Denis better fit the facts

Gauguin was the sole originator of the Synthetic style That style was derived, perhaps lass, which does perfectly what Gauguin wished to do: translate the effect of sunlight into lu, Byzantine mosaics and the Kakemonos of the japanese

In short, it was as complete a rejection of Impressionism as possible and a return to the linear arabesque and decorative spacing of balanced color and form practiced by the primitives of all times and preserved, in the nineteenth century, in the works of artists whoas

[Footnote 1: ”Post-Impressionism,” by AS Hartrick _Imprint,_ May, 1913]

[Footnote 2: Paris, l'Occident, 1912]

[Footnote 3: Paris, Vollard, 1911]

[Footnote 4: Non as _La Lutte de Jacob avec l'Ange_]

III

The exhibition at the Cafe Volpini brought notoriety to Gauguin Various young artists, wearying of the acadeuin's--which they were being taught in the ateliers of Paris, took the road for Pont-Aven A these were Paul Serusier, Cha under the influence of these, and especially under that of Serusier, whose mind was uin attempted to become the teacher of a definite doctrine Hitherto he had been an artist of the type of Ingres, working purely intuitively, with one eye upon tradition and another upon nature

But his new pupils were eager for a theory, a forularly unhappy in their attempts to explain themselves

Whistler is not the only exareater had he not wasted so much time in controversy The public always takes too literally the efforts of an artist to analyze his own methods

All art is a synthesis, and no artist can be at the sauin was no exception to this rule Take for example, his often-quoted statement about the use of priin Indigo is the best basis It becoar You can obtain it at any cheuin himself did not follow this precept An exaed thus, froreen, veronese green, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, yellow chrome, vermilion, and crimson lake No artist needs to be told that itive, whether used pure or in : ”Seek harreeoes contrary to the previously quoted remark on the use of primary colors, but is opposed to those equally famous dicta: ”Does that trunk of a tree seem to you blue? Paint it as blue as possible,” and, ”A reen than half a mile”

It is therefore uin's teaching than to quote this or that paradoxical reh-school debate on theory, but a creator He refused even to be called a decorator, he preferred the title of artisan He declared outright that he had no technique ”Or perhaps I have one, but very vagabond, very elastic, according to the way I feel when I awaken in thein order to expressaccount of the truth of Nature, externally apparent People think nowadays that all the technicalare exhausted I do not believe it, if I ae by the numerous observations which I have made and put into practice

Painters have still uin therefore boldly called his pupils anarchists and left to theent” This did not prevent hireat respect for art tradition He knew that tradition is not a ”recipe for ence working in the past on the same problems that face the artists of to-day He realized that the essential substance of art is always the same Art is an eternal renewal of this substance ”The artist is not born of a single unity If he adds a new link to the chain already begun, it is much The artist is known by the quality of his transposition”

The ”transposition” that he himself strove for may be clearly read in his pictures He strove incessantly for a renewal of the decorative art of the great Venetians, by blending the Venetian glow of color with the caln His problem was essentially the same as that of Puvis de Chavannes, the problen and color so as to leave it still essentially a wall and not, as Veronese and Tiepolo left it, an optically deceptive piece of stage-scenery Puvis had solved the proble his scale of colors and by siuin solved his by the eliraduations of tone, and by reducing his drawing to the strongest possible arabesque of outline In everything he sought for the essential form, the form that contains all the other inessential forms

As Serusier puts it: ”The synthetic theory of art consists in reducing all forht lines, arcs of a circle, a few angles, arcs of an ellipse” And to express this forht for the most harmonious balance of color Maurice Denis says:--”Recall that a picture, before being a war-horse, a nude or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors arranged in a certain order”

[Illustration: Tahitian Wouin told his pupils not to draw from the model, but fro painters to have a e of facts could only be obtained from the study of models But he added that it was better to draw a curtain before theit One of his pupils declared: ”We went into the country to paint seascapes and to the seashore to do landscapes”

Gauguin's teaching in this respect exactly agrees with the reat Chinese and japanese painters He would have enjoyed that story of a Chinese painter, as sent out by the Emperor to paint the most celebrated landscape views in the E When the Emperor asked him: ”But where are your pictures?” he replied: ”I have theuin, with his hatred of copying either from nature or from the masters of the past, would also have appreciated the Chinese idea of a ”copy”--a free rearrange to one's temperament