This page is referenced by:

• 1 2020-12-17T15:16:28-08:00 Nature 22 plain 2020-12-17T15:35:25-08:00 In Jacoulet’s portraits the natural world is utilized as a floating adornment. During his travels to the islands he would sketch the flowers and foliage he encountered and adorned his portraits with them. The oversized flowers and foliage would often hover above and behind his subjects with no direct relationship. Yet the natural world has a large influence on Pacific Island culture as it often influenced local views of the universe and society. In Micronesia the organization of society is influenced largely by relationships to the sea as residents rely on it for food and must travel it for interisland exchange to survive. Material objects of Micronesia are often concerned with sea spirits, canoes, and fishing.
  
  How would you describe the relationship between Jacoulet’s nature-based images with Pacific Island material objects?
  
  UN HOMME DE YAP. QUEST CAROLINES (A YAP MAN. WEST CAROLINES)
  Paul Jacoulet
  Japan, c. 1936
  Woodblock print
  Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Child
  1982.133.10
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  FISH TRAP
  New Caledonia, Numea, 20^th century
  Spherical wood frame with fiber twine and adorned with cowry shells
  Gift of Richard Kelton
  1981.136.20
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  UNE JEUNE FILLE DE FIDJI, OCEANIE (A YOUNG FIJI GIRL. OCEANIA)
  Paul Jacoulet
  Japan, c. 1935
  Woodcut print
  Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Child
  1982.133.2
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  NATURAL FIBERS WOVEN HAND FAN 
  Micronesia, 19^th century
  Woven plant fiber and feathers with yellow and brown-purple dye and tortoise shells
  Gift of David L. Kamansky
  2005.42.13
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
• 1 2020-10-12T11:44:51-07:00 Closeness to Nature 19 gallery 2020-12-24T13:02:25-08:00 What is your favorite Jacoulet portrait? How do you interpret the subjects of his prints? What do you think Jacoulet wants you to feel when you see his work?
  
  Jacoulet’s focus on paradisal leisure and adornments evoke this theme of his subjects’ proximity to nature as a sign of “primitiveness”: primitive ways that inferred a natural progression to civilization through colonization. Between his watercolors and prints his subjects shift back and forth between melancholy and mischief as Jacoulet interprets their collective shift into “civilization” at the time of Japanese colonization. Overall Jacoulet provides a snapshot of Western understanding of the Pacific Islanders in the 20^th century and how his art contributed to the sentiment of disappeared communities.