"Technique and Meaning in the Paintings of Paul Gauguin reinterprets Gauguin's art by reconstructing his painting techniques and their meaning for contemporaries. Using Gauguin as a case study, V. Jirat-Wasiutynski and H. Travers Newton Jr. show that technique provides historical evidence of aesthetic and cultural meaning. Gauguin began as a self-taught amateur in 1873 and, from 1879 to 1885, his techniques were closely modeled on Impressionism. Beginning in 1886, however, Gauguin reevaluated traditional procedures and, like a Renaissance fresco painter, used full-scale cartoons to prepare his monumental figure paintings. In the following years, the delicately textured, matte surfaces and areas of opaque high-key color in his oil paintings deliberately evoked older non-oil media such as tempera and fresco. Contemporary critics responded by calling Gauguin's work "primitive" and "decorative.""--Jacket.

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