Paul Gauguin Noa Noa (Lives of the artist)

Description

Sent from his Tahitian refuge to Paris, the manuscript of Noa Noa was for many years known only in a reworked form, shaped by Charles Morice to the point of sometimes profoundly transforming Gauguin's voice. Nearly forty years would pass before the original text came to light, rediscovered by the art historian Jean Loize and presented here in the translation of the poet Jonathan Griffin. Stripped of the embellishments that had altered its features, the narrative reveals a terse, jagged, mordant prose, shot through with wonder and melancholy. Gauguin observes the world with an almost childlike curiosity, yet also with the piercing gaze of one who never ceases to question civilisation, art, and himself. More than an account of Tahiti, Noa Noa thus becomes the living imprint of an artist in search of another way of seeing, feeling, and creating. Watercolours, woodcuts and drawings accompany this rare edition, like so many visual flashes answering the wild, luminous freedom of a voice restored.