The New York herald., 1922-05-21
CHRONICLE AND
COMMENT
BY ARTHUR BARTLETT MAURICE.

THREE or four years ago much
L talked of novel of a moment
was Somerset Maugham's "The
Moon and Sixpence." 1t told the
story of the eccentric Strickland,
who found life as prosperous Brit
ish stock broker ihonotonous and
went to Paris to become an out-at-
the-elb0ws painter. Finally he de-
cided to shake entirely from his
feet the dust of so-called civiliza-
tion for the dreamy. half-clothed
life Of the natives of the South
Seas Islands. Some one called at
tention to the fact that Somerset
Maugham's model for Strickland
was obviously Paul Gauguin, one
Of the strangest of the many strange
figures of the modern school of
French impressionistic painting.
Gauguin had been temporarily for
gotten. "The Moon and Sixpence"
called attention to him. Then, year
or so later Frederick O'Brien pub
lished his widely read white Shad-
ows In the South Seas" in which he
told of seeking out Gauguin's grave
and described certain aspects of the
painters life among the natives of
Tahiti.
M r. O'BRIEN contributes the
AA Foreword to "The Letters of
Paul Gauguin," which has just been
published by Dodd, Mead & Co. In
1t he recalls the search for the un-
marked grave on Calvary, the lonely
hill above the village where eau
guin died alone. "Cocoanuts grew
in that neglected spot, and the
hibiscus was blood-red on the ON
inous earth. Somewhere in the
half acre was the dust of Gauguin.
which perhaps nourished the living
beauty of the blossoms as his art
had revived humanity in painting"
When Mr.. O'Brien began to live in
the places where Gauguin passed
the last dozen years of his tortured
life and where he died in wretch
edness he found that few of the
natives knew anything of the paint
er's fame or his career, and so
they spoke of him only as strange
artist, friend. an enemy, or a lost
scul. He had been dead ten years
when I came upon his former habi-
tat. yet his servant recalled him
vaguely, his mistress alphabetically,
the trader admirably, one mission
ary factually and another bitterly,
and chief with regret"
TITLE wonder that Somerset
- Vaughan found a story in
Gauguin's life. Half dozen stories
are there. 1t was one of the strang-
est of lives. Frederick O'Brien in
the Foreword says, ITO the last
breath he had been a rebel against
convention in life and art" He
might have added that Gauguin had
been that from his first breath. Re-
volt was in his blood. The first
sounds that fell upon his ears were
of cannon booming in nearby Paris
streets. That was during the revo-
luton that shook Europe in 1S4S.
When, in June of that year, Paul
Gauguin was ushered into the world
the barricades were up, crowned
with red flags and defended by sixty
thousand men. Says John Gould
Fletcher in Paul Gauguin, His
Life and Art: "This infant
brought obscurely into the world TO
the sound of cannon, was destined
by one of the ironic dispensations
of Nature to become later the leader
o. an art revolution as farreaching
and as important in its effects as
the great attempt of 1S4S."
THE spirit of revolt dated from
his birth. His ardor for the
tropics came only little later, for
at the age of three he was taken
to Peru. His father died ou the