Savage strategies: Parisian Avant-garde and "Savage" Brittany in the definition of Paul Gauguin

Fundamental anthropology can help us understand the historical context of the selfrepresentation of Gauguin as a "Savage" and its strategic function in the constitution of the artist’s position within the Parisian avant-garde. The subsequent mythological / art historical construction of Gauguin as an avant-gardist figure was an implicit acceptance of this self-description as a primitive sharing in the supposed primitivistic nature of Brittany. This acceptance had at its origin the Parisian Vision of rural France in the XIXth century which it had until recently quite uncritically assumed as a given. We propose to examine this vision within its original context in French political and economic history. Through it we intend to place both the avant-garde and Gauguin within the historical crisis that shook XIXth century France. Our study will synthetize both the political and economic aspects of this subject through the fundamental anthropology of the mimetic theory of cultural formation.