PUBLIC FAVORITES

France's Paul Gauguin and Maine's Eastman Johnson were contemporaries whose objectives, achievements and ultimate positions were at opposite ends of the art spectrum. The Gauguin reproduced opposite is the public favorite at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Johnson is the favorite at Milwaukee's Layton Art Gallery.

Gauguin was a successful stockbroker on the Paris Bourse, who painted a bit on Sundays. At 35 he chucked everything for art. Painting purely to please himself, he pleased hardly any of his contemporaries. In 1903 Gauguin died broke, bitter and unknown, having created some of the richest and most surprising color harmonies that ever hung on a wall. They gained him lasting fame.

Johnson went abroad to study while still in his 20s, and returned to the U.S. with far more knowledge of his craft than Gauguin could boast. He painted to please his customers, in the accepted tradition of sentimental realism. Tobacco-juice brown was his favorite hue. A particularly crabbed critic once remarked that Johnson's best work "ranges from cute to nice," but it did please the customers. Johnson died famous in 1906, and descended at once into obscurity.

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