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

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Apr 21st, 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.