Overview

Noa Noa is one of the best examples of a nineteenth-century artist's book. Part-travelogue, part-autobiography and rich in imagery, it sealed Gauguin's reputation as a painter of the tropics. This edition brings the original co-authored text of Noa Noa to the public, allowing a new interpretation of Gauguin to emerge. Written together with the poet Charles Morice, it sets up a dichotomy between the 'savage painter' and the 'civilised poet', one which reveals the painter's careful orchestration of his persona and manipulation of its reception. Claire Moran's introduction situates the text within Gauguin's aesthetic, detailing its complex history and signalling its themes. Noa Noa is followed by a first print edition of the Manuscrit tiré du Livre des métiers de Vehbi-Zumbul Zadi, an artistic treatise, penned by Gauguin. Through both texts, Gauguin emerges as an extraordinary teller of tales, a painter for whom the truth was never black and white

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9781781881545

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'Moran has given us not only a fine new edition of Noa Noa, but also a forceful reminder of the generic complexities that underpin artists' writings.' - Richard Hobbs, French Studies, 72 (2018), 450-51. 'Moran's introductory essay is itself a noteworthy piece of contemporary scholarship on Gauguin... her very thorough and carefully edited new version of Noa Noa add to our understanding of Gauguin as a writer, in particular, the way he used writing as a mode of self-representation, not merely as a backdrop for his visual art... This affordable text will be useful for scholars of fin de siècle French art and literature as well as students of French language, art history, and aesthetic theory, and will likely lead to new scholarship on Gauguin... I would invite others going forward to consult Moran's edition of Noa Noa as the definitive text for any study of Gauguin.' -- Heather Waldroup, H-France 18.213, October 2018

'Moran has given us not only a fine new edition of Noa Noa, but also a forceful reminder of the generic complexities that underpin artists' writings.' - Richard Hobbs, French Studies, 72 (2018), 450-51. 'Moran's introductory essay is itself a noteworthy piece of contemporary scholarship on Gauguin... her very thorough and carefully edited new version of Noa Noa add to our understanding of Gauguin as a writer, in particular, the way he used writing as a mode of self-representation, not merely as a backdrop for his visual art... This affordable text will be useful for scholars of fin de sie cle French art and literature as well as students of French language, art history, and aesthetic theory, and will likely lead to new scholarship on Gauguin... I would invite others going forward to consult Moran's edition of Noa Noa as the definitive text for any study of Gauguin.' -- Heather Waldroup, H-France 18.213, October 2018

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