En 1892, la toile Manao tupapau de Paul Gauguin présente, à l’arrière d’une vahiné dénudée, un petit personnage encapuchonné. L’artiste explique qu’il s’agit d’un tupapau, d’un revenant dans les traditions polynésiennes. Le motif en réalité est déjà apparu en France en 1888, sans référence à l’Océanie, et ne cessera de hanter l’œuvre jusqu’au décès de Gauguin en 1903. Cette figure thanatique, intrusive dans une œuvre qualifiée d’exotique et d’érotique, méritait réflexion, d’autant que la critique l’a souvent banalisée ou effacée. Ce personnage montre-t-il que l’artiste cède au fantastique fin-de-siècle ? S’agit-il d’alimenter l’exotisme, comme les Orientalistes, en faisant cohabiter cette entité ténébreuse avec la «belle des îles» ? Y a-t-il, de la part d’un homme exécrant l’Europe mercantiliste et racialiste, un intérêt sincère pour le surnaturel polynésien persécuté par les missions chrétiennes ? Notre travail a montré que l’excursion dans les îles du Pacifique pouvait virer à la descente aux Enfers. Face à la normalisation coloniale et chrétienne des mœurs et croyances polynésiennes, la peur de la damnation, la mortalité effrayante dû au mal vénérien, le démon à capuche est la mort qui gagne sur les plaisirs, la diabolisation de la liberté sexuelle. Mais il exprime aussi une ingression dans les ténèbres de la psyché, une tension entre volonté de jouissance dans la nouvelle Cythère et peur d’une sexualité féminine diabolisée et indomptée, entre désir de régression vers la mère et envie de fuir une figure tutélaire anxiogène. Le petit génie macabre contribue enfin à orienter l’œuvre vers une esthétique originale, mettant à mal les stéréotypes artistiques et idéologiques. / In 1892, Paul Gauguin’s painting Manao tupapau shows, behind a naked Tahitian woman, a little hooded character. The artist explains that this is a tupapau, that is to say a ghost in the Polynesian traditions. In reality the pattern already appeared in France in 1888, without any reference to Oceania, and it will haunt the work of Gauguin until he died in 1903. This figure, invasive in a so-called exotic and erotic work, deserves special attention, especially as most critics often trivialised or deleted it. Does this character prove that the artist is yielding to fin-de-siècle fantasy ? Is it a way to feed exotism, like the Orientalists painters, by the coexistence between this shadowy ghost and the « belle des îles » ? Knowing that Gauguin hated the mercantilist and racialist Europe, does he have a real interest in the Polynesian occult world and beliefs as they were fought by Christian missions ? Our dissertation showed that Gauguin’s excursion in the Pacific islands went a downward spiral. When the Polynesian customs and religion are standardized by colonialism and Christianism, when guilt of damnation and mortality caused by the syphilis are spreading, the hooded genius represents death prevailing over pleasure, the demonization of sexual freedom. This figure expresses also a descent into the dark room that is Gauguin’s psyche, his being torn between will of enjoyment in the new Cythère and fear of a demonized and untamed female sexuality, between his desire to come back to the mother image and his avoidance of a stressful domination figure. At last the little genius helps to give the work an original esthetics, challenging artistic and ideological stereotypes.

No description available.

The question of this degree project is to investigate whether it is possible to convert one art form to another. The thesis has been about converting the art of painting into music. French post-impressionism has been transformed into contemporary chamber music. Setup The degree project “Toner i dubbel bemärkelse” (Tones in two Senses) is about the saxophonist and clarinettist Robert Nevén’s research on his experiences with synaesthesia, and how this has inspired him to compose music for an ensemble consisting of both improvisational and classical musicians. Synaesthesia is a neurological condition where one sensory impression triggers another. A common form of synaesthesia is when reading certain letters and/or numbers makes the synaesthete perceive specific colours. The person in question either sees the colour in front of the eyes, or imagines it in the head. Implementation Nevén believes he experiences synaesthesia to a certain extent, and in his case, it is as follows: Often when he plays a certain note it triggers the visual cortex so that he thinks of a specific colour. This has led to the idea of taking this the other way around for compositional inspiration purposes: Nevén has extracted the colours from five paintings of French post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin, turned these colours into the musical pitches he associates them with, and written one composition for each painting’s tone material respectively. The five paintings are: Blue Trees Spirit of the Dead Watching (Manaò tupapaú) Redheaded Woman and Sunflowers The Loss of Virginity (Awakening of Spring) The Sorcerer of Hiva Oa (Marquesan Man in the Red Cape) In one composition, the musical form and instrumentation are derived directly from the painting. In others, the tone material is assembled more freely based upon different compositional concepts. The music was presented in concert at The Royal College of Music in Stockholm at March 20th, 2018. Conclusion The conversion of paintings to music is possible, but it requires a format so that the result faithfully follows the original. In this case, the format consisted of keeping the composition within the framework of a painting’s given tone material as much as possible. / <p><strong>Kompositör:</strong></p><p>Robert Nevén</p><p></p><p><strong>Repertoar:</strong></p><p>1) <em>Blue Trees</em></p><p>2) <em>Redheaded Woman and Sunflowers</em></p><p>3) <em>The Sorcerer of Hiva Oa (Marquesan Man in the Red Cape)</em></p><p>4) <em>Spirit of the Dead Watching (Manaò tupapaú)</em></p><p>5) <em>The Loss of Virginity (Awakening of Spring)</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Medverkande musiker:</strong></p><p>Robert Nevén - klarinett &amp; tenorsaxofon</p><p>Zaida Ponthin - violin</p><p>Oscar Edin - violin</p><p>Ragnhild Kvist - viola</p><p>Johannes Rydén - cello</p><p>Jonas Grumstedt - kontrabas</p><p>Kim Sundell - elgitarr</p><p>Rui Hallvares Andrade Paes - piano</p>

Dans la seconde moitié du 19ème siècle, des liens particuliers se tissent entre art et médecine : la médecine moderne se tourne vers les œuvres pour y découvrir une clinique, et en retour certains peintres et écrivains se nourrissent de ces nouveaux savoirs pour renouveler leurs pratiques. Mais quand la physiologie prend l’art pour objet, qu’elle analyse les œuvres, leur création et leur réception, l’art peut être loué, ou à l’inverse condamné, et les figures de l’artiste et du médecin tendent à se confondre, ou à s’opposer. Notre travail porte sur ce qui rend possible cette alliance et ces conflits. Nous interrogeons pour cela l’idée de visibilité commune à l’art et à la clinique, le concept de pathologie, et le problème de la norme. Il apparaît alors que la figure de l’artiste anormal, « malade », est un héritage de la mélancolie traditionnelle : sa valeur, qu’elle soit positive ou négative, se comprend toujours dans un contexte spécifique et varie en fonction d’une série de déplacements. Par l’analyse des discours et de quelques œuvres représentatives, nous entendons alors non seulement rendre compte de la physiologie de l’art en France à cette époque, dans ses différentes versions, mais encore montrer qu’elle est un prisme privilégié pour comprendre certaines œuvres. / In the second half of 19th century, specific bonds are forged between art and medicine: the modern medicine turns towards artworks and discovers there a clinic. In return, some painters and writers feed themselves on new knowledges to revitalize their practices. But as physiology takes art as its object, analyzes artworks, creation and reception, art can be praised, or conversely condemned. Thus, the figures of the artist and of the physician tend to join or to oppose themselves. Our work deals with what make this union and these conflicts possible. We address the idea of visibility, common to art and clinic, the concept of pathology, and the problem of norm. Thus, it appears that the figure of the abnormal artist, the “sick artist’’, is a legacy of the traditional melancholy: its value, positive or negative, is always understood in a specific context and changes according to a set of transfers. As we analyse discourses and some representative artworks, we intend not only to give an account of physiology of art as it appears in France at this time, but also to show that it is a privileged prism to understand a certain kind of artwork.

This dissertation asserts that the tortuous relationship Spanish American literature had with cosmopolitanism since the Wars of Independence reached a turning point towards the end of the second half of the twentieth century. While the literary production of the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century was centred on the Spanish American nation and the continent, contemporary literature has become increasingly deterritorialized, and has begun to present narrative worlds and discuss issues that transcend this circumscribed universe. The discerning of this articulation of global issues in contemporary literature – which I contend is predicated on the concept of cosmopolitanism – is the primary objective of this investigation. The five novels examined here are Elena Poniatowska’s La “Flor de Lis” (1988), Mario Vargas Llosa’s El Paraíso en la otra esquina (2003) and El sueño del celta (2010), and Jorge Volpi’s El fin de la locura (2003) and No será la Tierra (2006). This study aims to describe and assess an evolving perspective on the treatment of cosmopolitanism in Spanish America. I trace the shift from the previous generations’ main preoccupation with aesthetic cosmopolitanism, which sought to engage Latin American literary discourse with the Western canon, to what I identify as the current political implication of the concept. To this end, I show that whereas mid-twentieth century authors displaced cosmopolitanism in favour of more politically expedient concepts, authors now plot it in their novels as a means of discussing issues of identity and citizenship in an increasingly globalized world.