“There are many instances of vanguard artists stepping out of civilisation into the primitive. Be it Gauguin and Laval in Martinique, Picasso in Gósol, Matisse in Tahiti, Pechstein in Palau or a dozen others artists, we can recall modern European men going to the well of barbarous backwardness in order to drink of its invigorating water, only to discover it tainted by colonial microbes – the religion, clothing, education, laws, consumer goods and other appurtenances of the West. An associated practice is going to a less developed part of one’s own country to immerse oneself in the simple life. Gauguin and Denis treated Pont Aven as their artless backwater, where the girls still danced in traditional bonnets and no one read the Paris papers.

Read more