1876 -1903 · symbolic objects, quotations and presences

Apples, sunflowers, idols, prints and portraits enter Gauguin's assemblages where still life becomes autobiography, homage and conflict of images.

Gauguin practiced still life throughout his career and used it to confront several worlds. Apples recall his dialogue with Cézanne, whose work he owned and admired; their volume is, however, subject to firmer contours and more arbitrary color relationships. Sunflowers painted in the Pacific summon the memory of Van Gogh without reproducing his vase: placed on an armchair, they become a memory of a relationship and a dream workshop. Still life at Hope combines flowers, fruits and reproduction of a work by Puvis de Chavannes, superimposing the painting within the painting on a period of illness and worry. Flowers with an idol bring together European objects and Polynesian sculpture in a staging created by the artist. These images therefore do not naively document a culture: they reveal how Gauguin collects, cites and reorganizes signs to construct his own story. The "Still lifes of Paul Gauguin" selection notably compares Still Life with Apples and Still Life with Sunflowers on an Armchair (II). His reading favors light.

In Gauguin, objects never remain silent: they speak of other artists, of places left and of the identity that the painter wants to compose.