Albert Aurier, a young critic who had written in his favor and helped to make his art known, was dead. Theodore Van Gogh, who had supported him and had attempted to find buyers for his work, had followed his unfortunate brother into the grave. Meanwhile his pupils of yesterday, Bernard, Sérusier and the rest, were going about Paris vaguely hinting that they had taught Gauguin something and that Cézanne and Van Gogh were better artists. The halo of victory which had crowned his departure from Paris was rapidly fading.
He had painted already at Tahiti, as he knew, magnificent pictures—pictures better than anything he had done before. Moreover, he believed that he could now paint others from memory as well in Paris as elsewhere. What he had seen in Tahiti had given him the necessary material upon which his imagination, always synthetic and non-realistic, could work. His health and his future prospects could only suffer by a longer stay. He believed that in returning to Paris he could make himself once and for all an outstanding figure. If he did not, perhaps it would be better to give up painting altogether. He was growing old.
On the thirtieth of August 1893, he arrived at Marseilles with four francs in his pocket, after a terrible voyage in the steerage, in the height of summer, during which three unfortunate passengers died of heat in the Red Sea. It is almost incredible to think of, that this man, during the two years he had been away from France, had painted, despite failing health, and financial miseries, over forty canvases, among them such masterpieces as L'Esprit Veille, Matamua, and Ia Orana Maria. And yet this very same man arrived back in France a pauper! Truly, he might well say of himself, that he was born with the evil eye, which brings to its owner, as well as others, only misfortune.
III
Paris has been for a century the most fickle and cruel city in the world. Since her spoiled darling Napoleon fell, there has been no one to whom she is willing to grant her favors for more than a day. There are a few exceptions to this rule. Hugo, because he lived in exile; Balzac, because he, too, was a hermit, continually pestered by his creditors; and of recent years Verlaine, because he haunted the lowest cafés, the vilest dens, and only emerged from these to go into a hospital or a prison. Such men may be the idols of Paris. For the rest, Paris is willing only to think of her children as sons for a day.
Gauguin returned, picturing a complete conquest of Paris. But he had already enjoyed the brief hour of glory that was to be his.
Had he but managed his affairs more wisely, he might, on the strength of the sensation his pictures had created in Denmark and subsequently in Sweden, Norway, and Germany, have now concluded with a picture-dealer an arrangement enabling him to obtain a small fixed sum every year for his work. But Gauguin demanded all or nothing! And, as was the case before with his mother and her Peruvian relatives, the result was nothing.
He decided to give a general exhibition of his entire Tahitian work, forty-four pictures and two pieces of sculpture. Durand-Ruel gave him a gallery and Charles Morice, chief of the young symbolists whom Gauguin had met after the Volpini show, wrote a preface to the catalog, which probably only served to mystify the public still further.
For the effect of the exhibition on public and press was to produce frank bewilderment. Of the forty-four pictures exhibited, thirty-three remained unsold. What misled visitors more than anything else were the titles that Gauguin had seen fit to attach to his pictures. These titles were in the Tahitian language. Every one immediately supposed that in order to understand the pictures, it was necessary to be expert in the history, the folk-lore, the manners and customs of Tahiti. Naturally therefore the pictures seemed to be mere archæological and ethnological puzzles, only to be read by those possessing the key.