Dreaming Paris at Tahiti

#88009     48″ X 36″      ac

• Gauguin: “Le Repos”, 1897. Courtauld Institute of Art
• “We Greet Thee, Mary”, 1891. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
• Chagall: “Le Plafond de l’Opera de Paris”

After deciding that Pont Aven in France and Martinique in the West Indies did not fulfill his dreams, Paul Gauguin kept going back to Tahiti, where he lived for ten years and died. Although the Marquesas Islands were French, did Gauguin’s natives dream much of Paris?

No matter! Chen leys Gauguin’s two natives represent anyone who has been to Paris or wants to go. Of course the Eiffel is what everyone must see, but now there is a newer symbol, although less accessible and not widely known: Chagall’s fanciful ceiling of the old Paris Opera House.

Ah! Again notice the panniers of fruit in the foreground.

– Lawrence Jeppson