Two Images of the Artist in Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence

Abstract

Roughly based on the life of the French painter Paul Gauguin, William S. Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence (1919) succeeded in creating an image of the artist — Once a British London stock trader, Strickland suddenly becomes obsessed with art. He abandons his wife and children, forsakes a life of prosperity and happiness, and runs to Paris and then Tahiti to pursuit the artistic dream. In spite of the entanglement of poverty and the torment of illness, this painter has injected all the values of his life onto the canvas. He creates his masterpieces at the cost of the happiness of others, including that of another painter named Stroeve, who lacks of the talent for painting despite that his paintings sell well and he is able to support a relatively well-off family. Two images of the artist fully denote the contradictions between the genius and the mediocre persons, artistic ideals and the materialistic reality. Besides, they reveal Maugham’s own artistic temperament as well.