Bible Review

Although Mlle. Henri was actually the mistress of Gauguin’s patron and pupil, Meyer de Haan, by whom she bore an illegitimate child, Gauguin pursued her unsuccessfully. Mlle. Henri claims to have rebuffed Gauguin because he was married. See Chásse, Gauguin sans Légendes (Paris: Les Editions du Temps, 1965), p. 37.

See James Hill, Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art. (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), p. 190.

Chásse, Gauguin Son Temps, p. 68.

Chásse, Gauguin Son Temps, p. 74. On the notion of the earthly paradise, see Werner Hoffman, The Earthly Paradise (New York: George Braziller, 1961), p. 363:

Mlle. Marie Henri’s account of the room appears in Charles Chásse, Gauguin Son Temps (Paris: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1955), pp. 79ff.

Wayne Andersen, Gauguin’s Paradise Lost (New York: Viking, 1971), p. 8.

See Vojtech Jirat-Wasiutynski, Gauguin in the Context of Symbolism (New York: Garland Publ., 1978), pp. 332–335.

Cf. the contest between Elijah and the priests of Baal in 1 Kings 18.

Natural disasters would be perceived as forms of divine communication. Compare Amos 4:6–12.