Michael Prodger at Literary Review:
Today, says Thomas, ‘it feels difficult just to look at a Gauguin painting, without being told what to think’. The instructions tell us that he was ‘a sexual predator in life and a colonialist in his art’. Thomas’s aim is not to launder Gauguin’s reputation or undo recent decades of feminist art history and postcolonial studies but to eliminate some of the anachronism that inevitably arises when the past is examined, and judged, by contemporary mores.
There is no doubt that Gauguin was a deeply flawed individual. He was, says Thomas, ‘narcissistic … arrogant, brusque and often socially inept’ and a man who ‘never stopped concocting plans to live cheaply, make art, promote it and win renown and reward’. ‘“Gaugin” has become a negative icon,’ he writes, ‘less a body of work or a life, more a sign for a combination of artistic genius, colonial appropriation and sexual abuse.’ But Thomas believes he was more than this.
more here.