# 100 , POSTCARD FROM TAHITI: GOING GAUGUIN

IF PARADISE WAS LOST

IT WAS FOUND BY GAUGUIN

IN THE PUROLE SPLASH OF TAHITI

F.S;GAUGUIN,A SENSATIONAL LANDSCAPE

 Gas price soared to 3.89.99 a gallon, in Washington Metropolitan area during recent days, but this is not going to hold me up from visiting Gauguin.I drove all the way to Tahiti, to see him.Gauguin's Tahiti,that is.With art gourmets on the road,racing pitiless with me.He was splashing in lavender water ,and the wave of native words were crawling from his mouth,under a big mustache, towards the shore.
He was sitting in olive garden, in a Cezannesque divine and human pain,wandering at dawn and dusk,with his wings open,with temptational apples in the fall.After all, the lover artist was a poet in exile, to make myth of truth. A prophet and marthyr ,like any other artists.

 As  for any artist and poet,for Gauguin ,savage(OVIRI) means wild,free,primitive in the world of Britany,France.He lost his virginity to a fox,and then  he longed for paradise,Tahiti that is ,where I drove to,today...There ,Gauguin found his AUTI-TE/playing in fresh water(1894).He lived in FATATA TE MITI/near the sea ,with his brilliant colors and delightful water,and the Tahitian women,bathers standing,sitting,naked,half naked, from the back,front and profile,with herbs growing tall and aouising,and water inviting the waterfalls to orgasm.Tahitian landscapes were not all clouds,mountains,farms,palm trees or mango groves,but women,waters and waves.

 Under Tahitian sky,he closed his eyes in order to see."In order to produce something new,you have to return to the original source,to humanity in its infancy." That is what Paul Gauguin said,who was born 7 June 1848 in Paris,and died May 8,1903 in Hiva-Oa,Polynisian Islands of The South Sea,Oceania.
Gauguin also said:
"In the silence of Tahiti's beautiful tropical nights,I will hear the soft,murmuring mystic of my heart,in perfect harmony with the mysterious being that surrounds me."
He noticed: the Tahitian soil is becoming completely French ,and little by little the old order will disappear." That is how he came with recreation  of rituals,reality,myths gods  and goddess,with the help of Miss Tehamand(VAHINE),at his side,and an old  handbook.Hima was a great catch,,the goddess of moon,also the blend of imagery and cultures,as in
" Tehamana has many parents",with his backdrops never idle, but full of shadows and idols.

 Gone is Manet but now Manet's reclining nude,Olympia(1863) ,resurrecting in Gauguin's Manao Tupapau/The spirit of the dead keep watch(1892),again as reclining nude,and even in the wall of his self portrait with Manao Tupapan
(Post Break : Yes ,Gauguin had his own wall,even in Pre-Facebook Era!)
Gauguin's Black Venus,1889,in glazed stoneware is a supplement to OVIRI,and no wonder they are in the vicinity of SOYEZ AMOUREUSES VOUS SEREZ HEUREUSES/be in love and you will be happy(1889),carved and painted linden wood.Ondine in the waves,a red hair beauty painted from her  back,is a nude all out of white and blue water;and Eve,and  devil ,and demons,and Buddhist inspirations are migled in his nightmares of desperation and happy hours.

Underneath slips Gauguin's mythical female in his MAISON DE JOUIR/house of pleasure, in the Island of Hiva-Oa in the Marquesas Island,where he moved last, and died there.

*

I went back for a walk through.It was a good excercise and that was a chance to see Gauguin again,but he was gone and all left was his masterpieces and major opus with vivid colors,and earthy gods and godess,Hina Tefatu/the moon and the earth,and Mata mua/the olden times.

Nonetheless this was Gauguin who was trying to open the doors of the golden cage ,for his dove to fly around and stay alive,with love:

"For most I shall be an enigma ,but for a few I shall be a poet..."

For him there are no ashes but fire.Fire in flames.A reviving fire of love.As:

"Poetry...can be evoked simply by allowing oneself to dream while painting."

__PAUL GAUGUIN