|
''Spirit of the Dead Watching (Manao tupapau)'' is an 1892 oil on burlap canvas painting by Paul Gauguin, depicting a naked Tahitian girl lying on her stomach. An old woman is seated behind her. Gauguin said the title may refer to either the girl imagining the ghost, or the ghost imagining her.〔Jolly p. 95 per Eisenman p. 129〕 ==Subject== The subject of the painting is Gauguin's young native wife Teha'amana (called ''Tehura'' in his letters), who one night, according to Gauguin, was lying in fear when he arrived home late: "immobile, naked, lying face downward on the bed with the eyes inordinately large with fear . . . Might she not with her frightened face take me for one of the demons and spectres of the Tupapaus, with which the legends of her race people sleepless nights?"〔Jolly p.101 quoting ''Noa Noa'' (Louvre manuscript)〕 The spirit she fears is personified by the old woman seated at left. Art historian Nancy Mowll Mathews says the painting is a direct descendent of a previous series of "frightened Eves" that Gauguin painted from 1889.〔(Mathews, 181 )〕 His 1889 ''Breton Eve'', shown at the Volpini exhibition of 1889, represented Eve as in fear of the snake, reinterpreting the traditional Christian theme of innocence before the fall.〔Mathhews p. 134〕 In his letter of 8 December 1892 to his wife Mette (famously neglecting to mention that the girl in question was his lover),〔Jolly p. 93〕 he says "I painted a nude of a young girl. In this position she is on the verge of being indecent. But I want it that way: the lines and movement are interesting to me. And so, I give her, in depicting the head, a bit of a fright." He then needed to find a pretext for the girl's emotions.〔Mathews, 181〕 Mathews says it is too simple to attribute Tehura's terror to her belief in spirits and irrational fear of the dark; she says, following Sweetman,〔Sweetman pp.324-30〕 that Gauguin's sexual predilections should not be ignored when trying to understand the work. Rather, she suggests the girl's fear was a response to Gauguin's aggressive behavior, consistent with his known battering( says Mathews) of his wife Mette, the submissive fear in her eyes his erotic reward.〔Mathews, 182〕 Other historians such as Naomi E. Maurer have viewed the narrative as a device to make the indecency of the subject more acceptable to a European audience.〔(Maurer, 150 )〕 The painting appears (as a mirror image) in the background of another Gauguin painting, his ''Self-portrait with Hat'', indicating the importance he attached to it. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Spirit of the Dead Watching」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|