Paul Gauguin and the Cannibalization of Tahitian Culture
Poster Number
31
College
College of Visual and Performing Arts
Department
Fine Arts
Faculty Mentor
Laura Dufresne, Ph.D.
Abstract
Primitivism is a word used in the art world to define work influenced by the simplicity of color and form found in the work of non-western people. Artists in the 20th century such as Paul Gauguin were often fascinated by this style and would use it in their own work, but at the expense of the people from whom it came. In her book entitled Consuming the Caribbean, Mimi Sheller discusses this fascination with the “Other.” In this study of the interaction between the colonizer and the colonized, European interaction with non-western cultures is both a literal consumption of their goods and a visual consumption of their culture. The result is the idea that cultural appropriation is, in itself, a form of cannibalism. The goal of this paper is to illustrate the cannibalization of one culture by another through the analysis of Gauguin’s work during his time in Tahiti.
Course Assignment
FREN 360 – Igou
Start Date
21-4-2017 2:15 PM
Paul Gauguin and the Cannibalization of Tahitian Culture
Richardson Ballroom
Primitivism is a word used in the art world to define work influenced by the simplicity of color and form found in the work of non-western people. Artists in the 20th century such as Paul Gauguin were often fascinated by this style and would use it in their own work, but at the expense of the people from whom it came. In her book entitled Consuming the Caribbean, Mimi Sheller discusses this fascination with the “Other.” In this study of the interaction between the colonizer and the colonized, European interaction with non-western cultures is both a literal consumption of their goods and a visual consumption of their culture. The result is the idea that cultural appropriation is, in itself, a form of cannibalism. The goal of this paper is to illustrate the cannibalization of one culture by another through the analysis of Gauguin’s work during his time in Tahiti.
