Nostalgic Promenade 1889

Editor: Gauguin's "Nostalgic Promenade," painted in 1889, is intriguing. The oil paint on canvas gives a sense of rough texture, fitting for the naive style, but there's a deliberate artlessness to the composition, a detachment. What do you see when you look at this piece? Curator: What strikes me is how Gauguin uses the materiality of the paint to flatten the landscape. The pigment application denies depth. Look at the raw, almost industrial color choices. How does this relate to the broader societal fascination with the ‘primitive’ that he and others capitalized upon? Is Gauguin romanticizing a lost production process, or replicating what he thought of as indigenous artistic practice? Editor: I see what you mean, the scene is rural, perhaps ‘folksy,’ but the execution seems… knowing? He's almost playing with the viewer's expectation of pastoral innocence. Curator: Exactly! Consider also the labor embedded. What kind of work creates this landscape? Is the artist merely representing, or is he implicated in the consumption of an idealized version of rural life for an urban audience? The rough texture may reflect the physical toil he both sought and escaped. Editor: That’s a compelling perspective, I had only considered the artlessness. How does this naivety reflect the labor behind the creation and consumption of this art? Curator: Think about who is consuming art and who is represented. Are these rural figures being elevated or merely commodified? Gauguin presents an ambivalent picture – both celebrating and arguably exploiting the very notions he depicts. Editor: So it becomes almost a social commentary? He’s using these simple elements of labor and material to almost comment on the commercialized views of an artist? Curator: Precisely! He is also leaving behind his high-society persona and jumping to a seemingly low maintenance job to appear more natural. It shows you just how a seemingly innocuous work can actually provoke such difficult discussions.