The article discusses Paul Gauguin's complex legacy, highlighting his transformation from a romanticized artist to a controversial figure. Sue Prideaux's new biography, "Wild Thing," aims to provide a deeper understanding of Gauguin by using his recovered manuscript and historical context. Rather than making moral judgments, Prideaux seeks to shed new light on Gauguin and his impact on art and society, despite the controversies surrounding his life and works. The narrative reveals the ongoing struggle to reconcile the man with the myths created around him.
This arc from rebel to swashbuckling art hero to repellent villain tells us less about the artist than it does about the audience.
Prideaux's biography aims "not to condemn, not to excuse, but simply to shed new light on the man and the myth."
Charting his life from birth...to death in French Polynesia in 1903, she makes use of the recently recovered manuscript of his stream-of-consciousness semi-memoir.
More broadly, she chooses to consider events in view of historical circumstance rather than moral dicta.
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