Ateliê dos trópicos: a busca de Paul Gauguin pelo “primitivo”

Abstract

This research takes the French artist Paul Gauguin as its central subject of reflection while simultaneously seeking to recover the obscured nuances that permeate his work, such as French imperialism, adherence to primitivist discourse, and the construction of alterity through the circulation of extra-European imagery, which highlights the value judgments attributed to cultural difference. Within this context, the study is guided by the following research question: To what extent, and through which visual, symbolic, and discursive strategies, does Gauguin’s work mobilize primitivism as a modern regime for representing the “Other”? Gauguin’s poetics as a modern artist is distinguished precisely by its proximity to the “primitive” – in other words, to what has conventionally been understood as the “exotic”. From this perspective, the objective of the research is to examine, through theoretical-critical articulation and iconographic analysis, part of the “tropical corpus” (1891–1903) as an artistic and ideological project linked to modern primitivism and the colonial context, interpreting the works as visual and cultural statements that produce meanings about the “Other” and difference. Accordingly, this dissertation proposes a shift away from the conventional appreciation of Gauguin’s work toward an analysis of its role in consolidating primitivism as a modern regime for representing the “Other,” highlighting the entanglement of modern art, colonialist discourses, and exoticizing practices.