Customer Reviews

Gauguin: Catalogue Raisonne of the Paintings (1873#1888)

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Wow, this is an art historian's dream book, and finally answers that great unknown countless people have pondered: Just what does one do with an art history degree? Answer: One does exhaustive research on a subject and puts it all in a book.
This book, in one sense, is peerless for it compiles an abundance of information and presents it in an easily read and interesting format. It not only covers all known paintings of the covered time period, it introduces some heretofore unknown ones and provides as much background information about them all as possible, including unbelievably great provenance info; copious asides describing the lives and relationships of various subjects, influences, artistic periods, and stylistic evolutions.
Reading this two volume set which will take many, many hours of reading will leave one with a thorough appreciation of Gaugin's ancestry, family, personality, life, and art (of the covered period).
The problem is that the book is so thorough that it really is most suitable for fellow art historians and gallery owners/employees who sell Gaugin paintings. In other words its broadest appeal is to a miniscule sliver of the population.
For other people, people who just want to look at pretty pictures, this book is probably not going to cut it for the following reasons: It covers the EARLY part of Gaugin's career before his most brilliant works were done -- certainly his most popular, in any event; and the reproductions in this book are overshadowed by the voluminous amount of textual information.
This is somewhat ironic don't you think, that a book about a visual artist is constructed in such a way that paintings are hidden amongst the text?
The editors of this high quality Skira publication, printed in Italy, should have included more large, lush reproductions of the subject paintings. One suspects this wasn't done because, frankly, many of the early paintings are more intimate level, whereas Gaugin's later works were generally monumental.
I don't believe this two volume set is good value at its full retail price. Nor is it an essential purchase except to the two tiny interest groups mentioned above.
Oh, and finally, it ought to be said that the contributors to this book are a little too obsessed with the notion of genetic determinism to suit my tastes. I understand that they are trying to make the book interesting but the psychologically speculative digressions they engage in put me in mind of that great obsessive character played by Sandra Bernhardt in 'The King of Comedy.'
This isn't a recommended purchase, I'm sorry to say, the genuinely great background material and extensive research contained in these two volumes notwithstanding.
Wildenstein which sponsored this book as a replacement of its 1964 catalogue raisonne should have created a three volume set that covered his entire career. This would make much more sense and would have made this a worthwhile four star purchase.