The painting entitled The Idol (1998) comes to point out exactly how Gauguin gave everything away for the idol: the characters in both works are extremely similar. This painting has a large statue as a focus, surrounded by a paradisiacal Tahitian landscape. What is interesting is that this is one of the first times when Gauguin dedicates an entire painting to the idol, giving it a certain main role, depicting it in its full power. More interesting still, is the clear resemblance between the idol and “Oviri”, which is analogous to a strong correspondence between the idol and the painter. This strengthens the idea that Gauguin identifies himself with the idol, a signal that the transition has reached its final stage.
In 1897, Gauguin created a unique sculpture depicting the idol that finally concludes its victory. Here we see no trace of a battle between the artist and the idol, since the death of Gauguin’s soul has already occurred. Named Idol with a Pearl, it illustrates the idol deep in thought, in a position resembling the Buddhist priests so confident in their religious practices. Easy to perceive is the overpowering image of the winner, whose patronizing posture shows that it is self-sufficient and careless about the Frenchman. As Ziva Amishai-Maisels writes in her essay about the Tahitian idols, the idol in this sculpture has a “grim character […] appropriate for one before whom ritual slaughter is performed” and she identifies it as “Fatou, the God who condemned man to die” (Amishai-Maisels 335). If we associate this with Gauguin, we reach a remarkable resemblance, in that the artist actually did die because of the Tahitian culture, or better to say, he was sentenced to death by the Polynesian God.
Images (from top to bottom):
Rave te hiti ramu - The Idol. 1898. L’Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Idol with a Pearl. 1897. Musee d’Orsay, Paris