"The Ancestors of Teha'amana"

Paper Summary:

The writer evaluates the painting and discusses its expressive content. The paper notes that Teha'mana was a young Tahitian girl whom Paul Gaugin had taken as his bride. It explains that Gaugin left her and their baby in the year the portrait was painted. The writer explains that Gaugin seemed to relate to Teha'mana as a possession, painting her without emotion. The paper discusses the use of Tahiti as a setting for Gaugin to paint in. The writer discusses Gaugin's art in the light of other art of the same period. In conclusion, while the paper states that Gaugin should be praised for using techniques that were bold and revolutionary and that he shattered age-old concepts of painting Tahitian subjects from a European perspective, he should also be castigated for doing so at the expense of human emotions, with regard to the women in his life.

Table of Contents:
Evaluation of Expressive Content
Historic and Stylistic Context
In Conclusion
Works Cited

From the Paper:

"For Gauguin, Teha'amana fit nicely into this perceived notion. After all, Gauguin wanted to blend into the culture of Tahiti, and in his mind, this was an effective way of blending. Teha'amana would simply be added to his collection of "trophies," much like his collection of art. She would function as a subject for his works, until he was ready to make her a casualty of his drive to become rich and famous.
"Indeed, Teha'amana ultimately became a casualty of Gauguin's ferocious egotism when he left Tahiti and returned to France in 1893 - the same year that he painted this portrait. Teha'amana bore him a child, but he abandoned both of them upon his return to France. Is it any wonder that Teha'amana looks expressionless in the portrait? Perhaps she was aware of what was to come to pass.
"Marc S. Gerstein offers support for this interpretation in describing a similar painting of Teha'amana, entitled "Faaturuma": "As so often in Gauguin's Tahiti, he suggests muted undertones of sadness, disquiet and dissolution resonating beneath the luxuriant surface of his mystical paradise." (Impressionism: Selections From Five American Museums 80). "The small painting on the wall acts, at one level, to enhance this emotional atmosphere."
"Through its placement next to the subject's head, this image of a typical Tahitian dwelling becomes like an object of her veiled thoughts, evoking vague feelings of longing, loneliness and dislocation.""

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