Red Dogs and Pink Skies: Paul Gauguin on Painting and Music

WORKBOOK WITH CD ENCLOSED. FULL COLOR. MUSIC AND ART EDUCATION. Gauguin felt that his approach to color – the pinks beside purple or yellows near orange – had nothing to do with Naturalism or Impressionism, but everything to do with music. He thought like a composer, and he knew it. When critics complained that Gauguin’s paintings lacked perspective, seemed flat, and that his colors were unnatural, the artist turned to music to defend himself. The journalist Eugène Tardieu asked Gauguin why he painted red dogs and pink skies, and Gauguin replied, "I do it purposefully! It’s like music. I take an idea from life and arrange lines and colors to get symphonies and harmonies. I do not paint mere representations of reality. My paintings should make you think the way music does – simply through the mysterious affinities, the connections, that exist between our minds and arrangements of colors and lines." Gauguin felt that if people would only allow artists the same freedom from realism that musicians naturally enjoy, they would understand his work. He wrote in his journal, "Musicians live in a special world of sounds and harmonies. Painting should be special, too. The sister art to music, painting lives on forms and colors. Color, like music, is vibration." Together, the music and book of Red Dogs and Pink Skies celebrate not only Gauguin’s paintings and ideas about art and music, but also the relationship of painting to music generally. The design of the book – from the decorative borders and backgrounds to the humorous images – are based on details and elements of Gauguin’s own work. The music was inspired by "listening" to the paintings. For Gauguin himself said, "Color is the language of the listening eye."Evan Polenghi is the author of 'Red Dogs and Pink Skies: Paul Gauguin on Painting and Music' with ISBN 9780970124913 and ISBN 0970124910.