Le sourire: Journal sérieux, Sept. 19, 1899 1899

Editor: So, here we have "Le sourire: Journal sérieux, Sept. 19, 1899", a drawing and print by Paul Gauguin currently held at The Art Institute of Chicago. The haphazard script and the stained paper really create a feeling of intimacy, like peeking at someone's private thoughts. How do you interpret this work? Curator: As a formalist, I'm immediately drawn to the surface of the work. The layering of ink on the fibrous paper, the gestural quality of the script itself—these are the primary carriers of meaning. Forget, for a moment, that it's writing, and observe it as line and shape. What rhythms and tensions are created by this composition of marks? Editor: That's an interesting way to look at it! I was so focused on trying to decipher the text itself, I hadn't really considered it as abstract marks. Is there a structure here that can be deciphered beyond my inability to translate the handwriting? Curator: Consider the repetition of forms, the weight of the ink in certain passages versus the delicacy in others. Do these qualities create a visual sense of harmony, discord, tension, resolution? Also note that the materiality speaks to a sense of process, doesn't it? The drawing shows signs of being made. How is its artistic message constructed by this evidence of facture? Editor: I see what you mean! The splatters of ink and the aging of the paper really do become part of the visual narrative, even before we understand any potential semantic content from the document. It is aged, tactile and immediate all at once. Curator: Precisely. And by considering those formal elements, we can begin to understand how it speaks beyond language to our primal senses of material and surface. Editor: I will keep these concepts in mind as I continue studying visual artworks. This was extremely insightful.