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X-Rays Reveal a Tiny 19th-Century Beetle Embedded in a Paul Gauguin Painting
www.smithsonianmag.com
Left: Portrait of Paul Gauguin,Vincent van Gogh,1888. Right: The Little Cat,Paul Gauguin,1888 Van Gogh MuseumAfter examining the French artist Paul Gauguins The Little Cat with X-ray imaging, experts at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam are unraveling the paintings secretsincluding a hidden beetle.When the Post-Impressionist artist was working on the piece, the doomed beetle somehow made its way into his paint, becoming stuck to the canvas. Measuring only about one millimeter, its remains werent spotted until now.The researchers arent sure what kind of beetle it is. As they tell Artnets Eileen Kinsellam, it is lying on its back, the head and legs broken off.The analysis also revealed that The Little Cat was originally a part of a larger Gauguin painting. Museum experts found that threads around the canvas had been cusped, or stretched into arched shapes, on three of the works sides.The fourth side bears no such markings, suggesting that the canvas was cut off at the right side, probably by Gauguin himself, according to astatement from the museum.Gauguin painted The Little Cat in 1888, when he was visiting Vincent van Gogh in Arles, France. The artists lived together in the now-iconic Yellow House during a turbulent two-month period. Discussions about art became more frequent, and sometimes heated, per the Van Gogh Museums website. Vincent found it important to work from reality. Gauguin painted from memory, from his imagination.That December, van Gogh famously cut off his left ear, and Gauguin returned to Paris. But before their brief collaboration came to an end, the two artists influenced and challenged each other.[Gauguin is] often characterized as confident and someone to whom van Gogh looked up, says Joost van der Hoeven, a researcher at the museum, per the Art Newspapers Martin Bailey. But maybe the relationship was more one of equals.According to the museum, Gauguin was particularly impressed by van GoghsSunflowers, which inspired him to [start] work on his own yellow still life. Paul Gauguin was inspired by Vincent van Gogh's famous paintings of sunflowers. VCG Wilson / Corbis via Getty ImagesVincent wrote to his brother Theo that Gauguin was working on a big still life of an orange pumpkin and some apples and white linen on a yellow background and foreground, per the statement. This quote is intriguing, as a big still life by Gauguin is unknown.The Little Cat happens to have an orange pumpkin and a yellow background. As such, experts think it may have belonged to the larger canvas that van Gogh once described.Another clue can be found in an 1888 portrait that van Gogh made of his friend: It shows Gauguin working on a yellow canvas featuring a spherical orange objectechoing elements of The Little Cat and demonstrating the artists influence on each other. Experts say that van Goghs portrait was also cut down, though nobody knows why.It may be that he was dissatisfied with the picture, but wanted to save the image of Gauguin, either for possible copying or simply as a memento of their time working together in Arles, writes the Art Newspaper. But another possibility is that Gauguin disliked his failed still life being depicted and asked van Gogh to cut it out.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Art, Arts, Modern Art, Museums, Mysteries, Netherlands, New Research, Painters, Painting, Vincent Van Gogh, Visual Arts
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