“Nevermore” ( English Nevermore ) - one of the famous paintings by Paul Gauguin , written by him in Tahiti in 1897 . Stored at the Curto Institute of Art in London .
| ||
| Paul Gauguin | ||
| Never again . 1897 | ||
| Nevermore | ||
| Canvas, oil | ||
| Curto Institute of Art , London | ||
| ( inv. ) | ||
The picture is a variation on the theme of “lying naked”: a naked Tahitian girl lies on a rich bed and seems to be tensely listening to something. In the background is a doorway, in it are two talking people; in the upper left corner of the picture - the inscription "Nevermore", the signature of the artist, and next - a black bird, recalling the poem of Edgar Allan Poe "Raven" :
"... Away - from the heart a beak, and from a door - away a vision forever!"
Raven: "Never again!"
But the picture is not an illustration of the work of Po. Referring to this poem, the artist captures the romance of the irretrievably vanishing primitive and pure Tahitian world. As Gauguin subsequently wrote to the art dealer Daniel de Monfreyd [1] :
With the help of an ordinary naked body, I wanted to reflect the barbaric splendor of ancient times. Everything is consciously painted in dark and sad tones, there is no silk, velvet, no cambric, no gold, which create splendor, but only matter that has become precious from the touch of the artist’s brush [...]. This is not the raven of Edgar Allan Poe, but a satanic bird, which is always on guard.
Sustained in an unnatural, gloomy color scheme, the picture evokes anxiety rather than voluptuousness. The woman lying on the bed looks alarmed; she looks either at the crow, or at the conversations in the next room. The writing style - thick strokes, bright, expressive colors - as if anticipates the work of expressionists .
Gauguin presented the picture “Never Again” at his retrospective exhibition, organized during the Autumn Salon in 1906. The work had a great influence on Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse . In particular, Matisse already a year later creates the picture "Blue Nude, a memory of Biskra" [2] .
An X-ray showed that " Never Again" was written on top of another picture.
It is curious to note that despite the generally depressing and alarming mood, as a result of a survey conducted by the National Fund for Art Collections in 2010, the painting “Never Again” was chosen as “the most romantic painting in Britain” [3] .
- ↑ Bernard Denvir. “Quest for Paradise” Letter from Paul Gauguin to Daniel de Monfreyd of February 14, 1897. - Odín Editors, Barcelona: 1994. - ISBN 84-493-0081-9 .
- ↑ Marc Dupett. Paul Gauguin / The Great Artists - No. 3.
- ↑ Lorenzo Mazza. Il quadro più romantico: Nevermore di Gauguin .