[RegulatorCountry]

Well, I’ve studied art history, have a BFA and have critiqued numerous artists and their work before, so it’s surprising to me that this apparently highly noteworthy Gauguin leaves me cold. The color palette is murky and uninspired, composition is not particularly compelling and the subject matter is not just trite but somehow oddly depressing.

To think that this brown smudge of dead sunflowers and childish doodles of human figures is to fetch ten million pounds is just amazing to me, I really don’t see it. They have to be buying the provenance and the name(s), and not the beauty of the work. That, or the JPEG absolutely does not do it justice at all.

Or maybe I’m just feeling curmudgeonly, presuming to tackle a Gauguin and panning it.

/artsnob off, lol

[kabumpo]

I agree with you 100%.

[Ditter]

I don’t have any art degrees but I have painted for 20 years and taken classes and workshops and I completely agree with you on this Gauguin. It has got to be one of the ugliest paintings I have seen in a while. I am not crazy about Gauguin’s work generally, I think he was celebrated for his life style more than anything.

[SeekAndFind]

What makes this painting worth $77 Million ? Is it the artist or the quality of the painting itself?

[Joe 6-pack]

I have a BA in Art History and concur with your assessment. This is by far one of the weakest and least dynamic work of Gauguin’s that I’ve ever seen. Granted, I have little interest in much 19th century stuff after the Pre-Raphaelites to begin with, but at least a lot of late-impressionist to post-impressionist stuff is visually interesting (especially Seurat :-). This looks like the canvas was dropped in a mud puddle.

[wagglebee]

To think that this brown smudge of dead sunflowers and childish doodles of human figures is to fetch ten million pounds is just amazing to me, I really don’t see it. They have to be buying the provenance and the name(s), and not the beauty of the work. That, or the JPEG absolutely does not do it justice at all.

My thinking on this is twofold.

On the one hand, I think that a lot of the value is because the painting is Gauguin's tribute to van Gogh.

On the other hand, while I agree that this isn't anywhere near as praiseworthy as much of Gauguin's other works, it's also been my amateur opinion that pictures of Impressionist art never even come close to capturing the beauty of the original.

[fish hawk]

You must REALLY hate it when a couple of scribbled lines and a woman with the face of a monkey or her eye is under her nose goes for millions. (Picasso) I'm not an art snob at all but I believe it's all about who painted it, not if you think it's his greatest works.(or if you even like it at all ) I hate Salvador Dali but wouldn't mind having a six pack of his paintings.

[higgmeister]

That, or the JPEG absolutely does not do it justice at all.

I wondered how you could make any determination sight unseen. I would suspect the innate limitations of the Internet above all else. El Greco doesn't have a great impact on a webpage either.

[mnehring]

The color palette is murky and uninspired, composition is not particularly compelling and the subject matter is not just trite but somehow oddly depressing.

I think that was the point. It was taking some of Van Gogh's traditional subjects but painting it to reflect his depression and bleakness.

[SuziQ]

Maybe the way the sunflowers are depicted, as drooping and dying, and the colors being so murky, reflected the sadness Gaugin might have felt about Van Gogh's untimely death. He realized what had been lost to the art world.

That being said, the painting does nothing for me. ;o)

[aruanan]

They have to be buying the provenance and the name(s), and not the beauty of the work.

Well, yeah.