Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (øˈʒɛn ãˈʁi ˌpol ɡoˈɡɛ̃; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a leading French
Post-ImpressionistPost-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
artist. He was an important figure in the
SymbolistSymbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer. His bold experimentation with coloring led directly to the
SynthetistSynthetism is a term used by post-Impressionist artists like Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard and Louis Anquetin to distinguish their work from Impressionism. Earlier, Synthetism has been connected to the term Cloisonnism, and later to Symbolism...
style of
modern artModern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the
cloisonnist styleCloisonnism is a style of post-Impressionist painting with bold and flat forms separated by dark contours. The term was coined by critic Edouard Dujardin on occasion of the Salon des Indépendants, in March 1888. Artists Émile Bernard, Louis Anquetin, Paul Gauguin, Paul Sérusier, and others started...
, paved the way to
PrimitivismPrimitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
and the return to the
pastoralThe adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
. He was also an influential proponent of wood
engravingEngraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
and
woodcutWoodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s as art forms.
Biography
Paul Gauguin was born in Paris, France to journalist Clovis Gauguin and Alina Maria Chazal, daughter of the half-
PeruvianThis article is about the demographic features of the population of Peru, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
proto-socialist leader
Flora TristanFlora Tristan was a socialist writer and activist. She was also one of the founders of modern feminism...
, a feminist precursor. In 1849 the family left Paris for
PeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, motivated by the political climate of the period. Clovis died on the voyage, leaving eighteen-month-old Paul, his mother and sister to fend for themselves. They lived for four years in
LimaLima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
with Paul's uncle and his family. The imagery of Peru would later influence Gauguin in his art. It was in Lima that Gauguin encountered his first art. Alina admired
Pre-ColumbianPre-Columbian art is the visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North, Central, and South Americas until the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and the time period marked by Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Americas....
pottery —
IncaThe Andean civilizations made up a loose patchwork of different cultures that developed from the highlands of Colombia to the Atacama Desert. The Andean civilizations are mainly based on the cultures of Ancient Peru and some others such as Tiahuanaco. The Inca Empire was the last sovereign...
pots that some colonists dismissed as barbaric, his mother collected. And one of Gauguin's few early memories of his mother was of her wearing the traditional costume of Lima, one eye peeping from beneath the mysterious one-eyed veil, her
manteau, that all women in Lima went out in. "Gauguin was always drawn to women with a 'traditional' look. This must have been the first of the colourful female costumes that were to haunt his imagination."
At the age of seven, Gauguin and his family returned to France. They moved to
Orléans-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...
to live with his grandfather. The Gauguins came originally from around the town and were market gardeners and greengrocers —
gauguin means 'walnut-grower'. His father had split with family tradition to become a journalist in Paris. He soon learned French, though his first and preferred language remained Peruvian Spanish, and he excelled in his studies. After attending a couple of local schools he was sent to a Catholic boarding school in
La Chapelle-Saint-MesminLa Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France....
, which he hated. He spent three years at the school. At seventeen, Gauguin signed on as a pilot's assistant in the merchant marine to fulfill his required
military serviceMilitary service, in its simplest sense, is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, whether as a chosen job or as a result of an involuntary draft . Some nations require a specific amount of military service from every citizen...
. Three years later, he joined the French navy where he stayed for two years. He was somewhere in the
CaribbeanThe Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
when he found out that his mother had died. In 1871, Gauguin returned to Paris where he secured a job as a stockbroker. His mother's very rich boyfriend, Gustave Arosa, got him a job at the
BourseThe Paris Bourse is the historical Paris stock exchange, known as Euronext Paris from 2000 onwards.-History and functioning:...
; Gauguin was twenty-three. He became a successful Parisian businessman and remained one for eleven years.
In 1873, he married a
DanishDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
woman, Mette-Sophie Gad (1850–1920). Over the next ten years, they had five children, Emile (1874–1955), Aline (1877–1897), Clovis (1879–1900),
Jean RenéJean René Gauguin was a French/Danish sculptor.He won a bronze medal for Denmark in the art competitions at the 1924 Summer Olympics for his Boxer.He was the son of Paul Gauguin.-External links:*...
(1881–1961), and Paul Rollon (1883–1961). By 1884 Gauguin had moved with his family to
CopenhagenCopenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark, where he pursued a business career as a
tarpaulinA tarpaulin, colloquially tarp, is a large sheet of strong, flexible, water-resistant or waterproof material, often cloth such as canvas or polyester coated with urethane, or made of plastics such as polyethylene. In some places such as Australia, and in military slang, a tarp may be known as a...
salesman. It was not a success: He could not speak Danish, and the Danish did not want French tarpaulins. Mette became the chief breadwinner, giving French lessons to trainee diplomats. His middle-class family and marriage fell apart after 11 years when Gauguin was driven to paint full-time. He returned to Paris in 1885, after his wife and her family asked him to leave because he renounced the values they shared. Paul Gauguin's last physical contact with them was in 1891. Like his friend
Vincent van GoghVincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
, with whom in 1888 he spent nine weeks painting in
ArlesArles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
, Paul Gauguin experienced many bouts of depression and at one time attempted suicide. He traveled to
MartiniqueMartinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...
in search of an idyllic landscape and worked as a laborer on the
Panama CanalThe Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
construction; he was dismissed from his job after only two weeks.
In 1891, Gauguin sailed to
French PolynesiaFrench Polynesia is an overseas country of the French Republic . It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory...
to escape European civilization and "everything that is artificial and conventional". He wrote a book titled
Noa Noa describing his experiences in
TahitiTahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
. There have been allegations by modern critics that the contents of the book were fantasized and plagiarized.
Gauguin left France again on 3 July 1895, never to return. His time away, particularly in
TahitiTahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
and
Hiva Oa IslandHiva Oa is the second largest island in the Marquesas Islands, in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. It is the largest island of the Southern Marquesas group. According to local religion, the gods created the islands as their home. Therefore all islands have...
, was the subject of much interest both then and in modern times due to his alleged sexual exploits. He was known to have had trysts with several prepubescent native girls, some of whom appear as subjects of his paintings.
Gauguin outlived two of his children; his favorite daughter Aline died of pneumonia and son Clovis died of blood infection following a hip operation. Emile Gauguin worked as a construction engineer in the U.S. and is buried in Lemon Bay Historical Cemetery, in Florida.
Jean RenéJean René Gauguin was a French/Danish sculptor.He won a bronze medal for Denmark in the art competitions at the 1924 Summer Olympics for his Boxer.He was the son of Paul Gauguin.-External links:*...
became a well-known sculptor and a staunch socialist. He died on 21 April 1961 in Copenhagen.
PaolaPola Gauguin was a Norwegian/Danish painter, art critic and biographer. He was born in Paris and grew up in Copenhagen, lived in Oslo from 1912, and settled in Copenhagen from 1949. He was the son of Paul Gauguin, and a brother of Jean René Gauguin. He married Ingrid Blehr in 1910, and was the...
(Paul Rollon) became an artist and art critic and wrote a memoir,
My Father, Paul Gauguin (1937). Gauguin had several children by his mistresses: Germaine (b. 1891) with Juliette Huais (1866–1955), Emile Marae a Tai (b. 1899), with Pau'ura (1899–?), and a daughter (b. 1902) with Mari-Rose.
There is some speculation that the Belgian artist Germaine Chardon was Gauguin's daughter. Emile Marae a Tai, illiterate and raised in Tahiti, was brought to Chicago by French journalist Josette Giraud in 1963 and became an artist of note.
In French Polynesia, toward the end of his life, sick and suffering from an unhealed injury, he got in legal trouble for taking the natives' side against French colonialists. On 27 March 1903, he was charged with libel against the governor, M Guicheray and given three days to prepare his defense. He was fined 500 francs and sentenced to three months in prison. On 2 April, he appealed for a new trial in Papeete. At the second trial, Gauguin was fined 500 francs and sentenced to one month in prison. At that time he was being supported by the art dealer
Ambroise VollardAmbroise Vollard is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century...
. Suffering from
syphilisSyphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
, he died at 11 a.m. on 8 May 1903 of an overdose of morphine and possibly heart attack before he could start the prison sentence. His body had been weakened by alcohol and a dissipated life. He was 54 years old.
Gauguin was buried in
Calvary CemeteryCalvary Cemetery is the main cemetery in Atuona, Hiva ‘Oa, French Polynesia. It is located on a hillside on the eastern edge of town, overlooking the anchorage on Atuona Bay....
(Cimetière Calvaire),
AtuonaAtuona, located on Atuona Bay on the southern side of Hiva Oa island, is the administrative centre of the commune of Hiva-Oa. Atuona was the capital of all the Marquesas Islands but it has been replaced by Taiohae ....
,
Hiva ‘OaHiva Oa is the second largest island in the Marquesas Islands, in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. It is the largest island of the Southern Marquesas group. According to local religion, the gods created the islands as their home. Therefore all islands have...
,
Marquesas IslandsThe Marquesas Islands enana and Te Fenua `Enata , both meaning "The Land of Men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the southern Pacific Ocean. The Marquesas are located at 9° 00S, 139° 30W...
,
French PolynesiaFrench Polynesia is an overseas country of the French Republic . It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory...
at 2 p.m. the next day.
Artistic career
In 1873, around the same time as he became a stockbroker, he started becoming an artist too. Gauguin began painting in his free time. His Parisian life centred on the 9th arrondissement. Gauguin lived at 21 rue la Bruyére. All around were the cafés made famous by the Impressionists. Gauguin also visited galleries frequently and purchased work by emerging artists. He formed a friendship with
PissarroCamille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
and visited him on Sundays, to paint in his garden, and Pissarro introduced him to various other artists. In 1877 Gauguin, "moved downmarket and across the river to the poorer, newer, urban sprawls" of Vaugirard. Here, on the third floor at 8 rue Carcel, he had the first home in which he had a
studioA studio is an artist's or worker's workroom, or the catchall term for an artist and his or her employees who work within that studio. This can be for the purpose of architecture, painting, pottery , sculpture, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, radio or television...
. He showed paintings in Impressionist exhibitions held in 1881 and 1882 - (earlier a sculpture, of his son Emile, had been the only sculpture in the 4th Impressionist Exhibition of 1879.) Over two summer holidays, he painted with Pissarro and occasionally
Paul CézannePaul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
.
In 1887, after visiting
PanamaPanama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
, he spent several months near
Saint PierreSaint-Pierre is a town and commune of France's Caribbean overseas department of Martinique, founded in 1635 by Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc. Before the total destruction of Saint-Pierre in 1902 by a volcanic eruption, it was the most important city of Martinique culturally and economically, being known...
in Martinique, in the company of his friend the artist
Charles LavalCharles Laval was a French painter born March 17, 1862 in Paris and who died April 27, 1894. He is associated with the Synthetic movement and Pont-Aven School, and he was a contemporary and friend of Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. Gauguin created a portrait of him in 1886 looking at one of...
. At first, the 'negro hut' in which they lived suited him, and he enjoyed watching people in their daily activities. However, the weather in the summer was hot and the hut leaked in the rain. He also suffered
dysenteryDysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
and marsh fever. While in Martinique, he produced between ten and twenty works (twelve being the most common estimate) and traveled widely and apparently came into contact with a small community of
IndianThe history of Hinduism in Martinique sort of began with the importation of Indian laborers in the mid-19th century, and, although Hindus now comprise only 0.5% of the population, the religion is still practiced on the island today....
immigrants, a contact that would later influence his art through the incorporation of Indian symbols. Gauguin, along with
Émile BernardÉmile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
, Charles Laval,
Émile SchuffeneckerÉmile Schuffenecker was a French Post-Impressionist artist, painter, art teacher and art collector. A friend of Paul Gauguin and Odilon Redon, and one of the first collectors of works by Vincent van Gogh, Schuffenecker was instrumental in establishing the Volpini exhibition, in 1889...
and many others frequently visited the artist colony of
Pont-AvenPont-Aven is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Pont-Aven are called in French Pontavenistes.-History:...
in Brittany. By the bold use of pure color and Symbolist choice of subject matter the group is now considered a
Pont-Aven SchoolPont-Aven School is a term occupied by works of art iconographically due to Pont-Aven and its surroundings. Originally the term was focusing works of the artists' colony emerging there since the 1850s, and some decades later the work of the group of painters gathering around the artist Paul...
. Disappointed with
ImpressionismImpressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, he felt that traditional European painting had become too imitative and lacked symbolic depth. By contrast, the art of Africa and Asia seemed to him full of mystic symbolism and vigour. There was a vogue in Europe at the time for the art of other cultures, especially that of Japan (
JaponismJaponism, or Japonisme, the original French term, was first used in 1872 by Jules Claretie in his book L'Art Francais en 1872 and by Philippe Burty in Japanisme III. La Renaissance Literaire et Artistique in the same year...
). He was invited to participate in the
1889 exhibitionPaul Gauguin's exhibit at Les XX, 1889 was the first important display of his works, and added to the recognition that he had begun to receive in 1888. The annual exhibition was organized by Les XX, and participation was by invitation only. Gauguin's exhibit comprised paintings from Martinique,...
organized by
Les XXLes XX was a group of twenty Belgian painters, designers and sculptors, formed in 1883 by the Brussels lawyer, publisher, and entrepreneur Octave Maus. For ten years 'Les Vingt' , as they called themselves, held an annual exhibition of their art; each year twenty international artists were also...
.
Cloisonnism and Synthetism
Under the influence of
folk artFolk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic....
and
Japanese prints' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...
, Gauguin's work evolved towards
CloisonnismCloisonnism is a style of post-Impressionist painting with bold and flat forms separated by dark contours. The term was coined by critic Edouard Dujardin on occasion of the Salon des Indépendants, in March 1888. Artists Émile Bernard, Louis Anquetin, Paul Gauguin, Paul Sérusier, and others started...
, a style given its name by the critic
Édouard DujardinÉdouard Dujardin was a French writer, one of the early users of the stream of consciousness literary technique, exemplified by his 1888 novel Les Lauriers sont coupés.-Biography:...
in response to
Émile BernardÉmile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
's method of painting with flat areas of color and bold outlines, which reminded Dujardin of the Medieval
cloisonnéCloisonné is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects, in recent centuries using vitreous enamel, and in older periods also inlays of cut gemstones, glass, and other materials. The resulting objects can also be called cloisonné...
enamelling technique. Gauguin was very appreciative of Bernard's art and of his daring with the employment of a style which suited Gauguin in his quest to express the essence of the objects in his art.
In
The Yellow ChristThe Yellow Christ is a painting executed by Paul Gauguin in autumn 1889 in Pont-Aven. Together with The Green Christ, it is considered to be one of the key-works of Symbolism in painting....
(1889), often cited as a quintessential Cloisonnist work, the image was reduced to areas of pure color separated by heavy black outlines. In such works Gauguin paid little attention to classical perspective and boldly eliminated subtle gradations of color, thereby dispensing with the two most characteristic principles of post-
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
painting. His painting later evolved towards
SynthetismSynthetism is a term used by post-Impressionist artists like Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard and Louis Anquetin to distinguish their work from Impressionism. Earlier, Synthetism has been connected to the term Cloisonnism, and later to Symbolism...
in which neither form nor color predominate but each has an equal role.
Living in Mataiea Village in
TahitiTahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
, he painted "
Fatata te Miti" ("By the Sea"), "
Ia Orana Maria" (Ave Maria) and other depictions of Tahitian life. He moved to
PunaauiaPunaauia is a commune in the suburbs of Papeete in French Polynesia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. Punaauia is located on the island of Tahiti, in the administrative subdivision of the Windward Islands, themselves part of the Society Islands. In the late 1890s, the French...
in 1897, where he created the masterpiece painting "
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? is one of Paul Gauguin's most famous paintings. Gauguin inscribed the original French title in the upper left corner: D'où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous. The inscription the artist wrote on his canvas has no question mark, no...
" and then lived the rest of his life in the
Marquesas IslandsThe Marquesas Islands enana and Te Fenua `Enata , both meaning "The Land of Men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the southern Pacific Ocean. The Marquesas are located at 9° 00S, 139° 30W...
, returning to France only once, when he painted at
Pont-AvenPont-Aven is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Pont-Aven are called in French Pontavenistes.-History:...
.
His works of that period are full of quasi-religious symbolism and an exoticized view of the inhabitants of Polynesia. In Polynesia, he sided with the native peoples, clashing often with the colonial authorities and with the Catholic Church. During this period he also wrote the book
Avant et après (before and after), a fragmented collection of observations about life in Polynesia, memories from his life and comments on literature and paintings.
Historical significance
PrimitivismPrimitivism is a Western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, such as Paul Gauguin's inclusion of Tahitian motifs in paintings and ceramics...
was an art movement of late 19th century painting and sculpture; characterized by exaggerated body proportions, animal totems, geometric designs and stark contrasts. The first artist to systematically use these effects and achieve broad public success was Paul Gauguin. The European cultural elite discovering the art of Africa, Micronesia, and
Native AmericansThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
for the first time were fascinated, intrigued and educated by the newness, wildness and the stark power embodied in the art of those faraway places. Like
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
in the early days of the 20th century, Gauguin was inspired and motivated by the raw power and simplicity of the so-called
PrimitivePrimitive may refer to:* Anarcho-primitivism, an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization* Primitive culture, one that lacks major signs of economic development or modernity...
art of those foreign cultures.
Gauguin is also considered a Post-Impressionist painter. His bold, colorful and design oriented paintings significantly influenced
Modern artModern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
. Artists and movements in the early 20th century inspired by him include
Vincent van GoghVincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
,
Henri MatisseHenri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
,
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
,
Georges BraqueGeorges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
,
André DerainAndré Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
,
FauvismFauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
,
CubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
and
OrphismOrphism or Orphic Cubism , the term coined by the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, was a little known art movement during the time of Cubism that focused on pure abstraction and bright colors influenced by Fauvism and the dye chemist Eugène Chevreul...
, among others. Later he influenced
Arthur Frank MathewsArthur F. Mathews was an American Tonalist painter who was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Trained as an architect and artist, he and his wife Lucia Kleinhans Mathews had a significant effect on the evolution of Californian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
and the American
Arts and Crafts MovementArts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
.
John RewaldJohn Rewald was an American academic, author and art historian. He was known as a scholar of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cézanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Seurat, and other French painters of the late 19th century. He was recognized as a foremost authority on late 19th-century art...
, an art historian focused on the birth of
Modern artModern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
, wrote a series of books about the Post-Impressionist period, including
Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin (1956) and an essay,
Paul Gauguin: Letters to Ambroise Vollard and André Fontainas (included in Rewald's
Studies in Post-Impressionism, 1986), discusses Gauguin's years in Tahiti, and the struggles of his survival as seen through correspondence with the art dealer Vollard and others.
Gauguin and Van Gogh
Gauguin's relationship with
Van GoghVincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
was rocky. Gauguin had shown an early interest in
ImpressionismImpressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, and the two shared bouts of depression and
suicidal tendenciesSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. In 1888, Gauguin and Van Gogh spent nine weeks together, painting in the latter's Yellow House in
ArlesArles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
. During this time, Gauguin became increasingly disillusioned with Impressionism, and the two quarreled. On the evening of December 23, 1888, frustrated and ill, Van Gogh confronted Gauguin with a razor blade. In a panic, Van Gogh fled to a local brothel. While there, he cut off the lower part of his left ear lobe. He wrapped the severed tissue in newspaper and handed it to a prostitute named Rachel, asking her to "keep this object carefully." Gauguin left Arles, and a few days later Van Gogh was
hospitalizedHospital at Arles is the subject of two paintings that Vincent van Gogh made of the hospital in which he stayed in December 1888 and again in January 1889. The hospital is located in Arles in southern France...
. They never saw each other again, but they continued to correspond and in 1890 Gauguin proposed they form an artist studio in Antwerp. In an 1889 sculptural self-portrait
Jug in the form of a Head, Self-portraitJug in the form of a Head, Self-portrait was produced in glazed stoneware early in 1889 by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin. This self-portrayal is especially stark and brutal, and was created in the aftermath of two traumatic events in the artist's life...
Gauguin portrays the traumatic relationship with Van Gogh.
Legacy
The vogue for Gauguin's work started soon after his death. Many of his later paintings were acquired by the Russian collector
Sergei ShchukinSergei Ivanovich Shchukin was a Russian businessman who became an art collector, mainly of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, following a trip to Paris in 1897, when he bought his first Monet. He later bought numerous works by Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, among...
. A substantial part of his collection is displayed in the
Pushkin MuseumThe Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour....
and the
HermitageThe State Hermitage is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. One of the largest and oldest museums of the world, it was founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great and has been opened to the public since 1852. Its collections, of which only a small part is on permanent display,...
. Gauguin paintings are rarely offered for sale; their price may be as high as $39.2 million US$.
Gauguin's posthumous retrospective exhibitions at the
Salon d'AutomneIn 1903, the first Salon d'Automne was organized by Georges Rouault, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Angele Delasalle and Albert Marquet as a reaction to the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon...
in Paris in 1903 and an even larger one in 1906 had a stunning and powerful influence on the French
avant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
and in particular
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
's paintings. In the autumn of 1906, Picasso made paintings of oversized nude women, and monumental sculptural figures that recalled the work of Paul Gauguin and showed his interest in primitive art. Picasso's paintings of massive figures from 1906 were directly influenced by Gauguin's sculpture, painting and his writing as well. The power evoked by Gauguin's work led directly to
Les Demoiselles d'AvignonHe followed his success by developing into his Rose period from 1904 to 1907, which introduced a strong element of sensuality and sexuality into his work...
in 1907.
According to Gauguin biographer David Sweetman, Picasso as early as 1902 became an aficionado of Gauguin's work when he met and befriended the expatriate Spanish sculptor and ceramist Paco Durrio (1875–1940), in Paris. Durrio had several of Gauguin's works on hand because he was a friend of Gauguin's and an unpaid agent of his work. Durrio tried to help his poverty-stricken friend in Tahiti by promoting his oeuvre in Paris. After they met Durrio introduced Picasso to Gauguin's stoneware, helped Picasso make some ceramic pieces and gave Picasso a first
La Plume edition of
Noa Noa: The Tahiti Journal of Paul Gauguin. In addition to seeing Gauguin's work at Durrio's Picasso also saw the work at
Ambroise VollardAmbroise Vollard is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century...
's gallery where both he and Gauguin were represented.
Concerning Gauguin's impact on Picasso
John RichardsonJohn Richardson is a British art historian and Picasso biographer.-Life and work:John Patrick Richardson was born as the elder son of Sir Wodehouse Richardson, D.S.O., K.C.B., Quarter-Master General in the Boer War, and founder of London and the British Empire's Army & Navy Stores...
wrote,
The 1906 exhibition of Gauguin's work left Picasso more than ever in this artist's thrall. Gauguin demonstrated the most disparate types of art—not to speak of elements from metaphysics, ethnology, symbolism, the Bible, classical myths, and much else besides—could be combined into a synthesis that was of its time yet timeless. An artist could also confound conventional notions of beauty, he demonstrated, by harnessing his demons to the dark gods (not necessarily Tahitian ones) and tapping a new source of divine energy. If in later years Picasso played down his debt to Gauguin, there is no doubt that between 1905 and 1907 he felt a very close kinship with this other Paul, who prided himself on Spanish genes inherited from his Peruvian grandmother. Had not Picasso signed himself 'Paul' in Gauguin's honor.
Both David Sweetman and John Richardson point to the Gauguin sculpture called
OviriOviri is a stoneware ceramic sculpture created from partially glazed stoneware by the French artist Paul Gauguin in the winter of 1894/95. The work depicts the Goddess Oviri, a Tahitian deity of death and mourning, whose name translates as "savage" or "wild"...
(literally meaning 'savage'), the gruesome phallic figure of the Tahitian goddess of life and death that was intended for Gauguin's grave, exhibited in the 1906 retrospective exhibition that even more directly led to
Les Demoiselles. Sweetman writes, "Gauguin's statue
Oviri, which was prominently displayed in 1906, was to stimulate Picasso's interest in both sculpture and ceramics, while the woodcuts would reinforce his interest in print-making, though it was the element of the primitive in all of them which most conditioned the direction that Picasso's art would take. This interest would culminate in the seminal
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon."
According to Richardson,
Picasso's interest in stonewareStoneware is a vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic ware with a fine texture. Stoneware is made from clay that is then fired in a kiln, whether by an artisan to make homeware, or in an industrial kiln for mass-produced or specialty products...
was further stimulated by the examples he saw at the 1906 Gauguin retrospective at the Salon d'AutomneIn 1903, the first Salon d'Automne was organized by Georges Rouault, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Angele Delasalle and Albert Marquet as a reaction to the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon...
. The most disturbing of those ceramics (one that Picasso might have already seen at Vollard's) was the gruesome Oviri. Until 1987, when the Musée d'OrsayThe Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
acquired this little-known work (exhibited only once since 1906) it had never been recognized as the masterpiece it is, let alone recognized for its relevance to the works leading up to the Demoiselles. Although just under 30 inches high , Oviri has an awesome presence, as befits a monument intended for Gauguin's grave. Picasso was very struck by Oviri. 50 years later he was delighted when [Douglas] Cooper and I told him that we had come upon this sculpture in a collection that also included the original plaster of his cubist head. Has it been a revelation, like IberianThe Iberians were a set of peoples that Greek and Roman sources identified with that name in the eastern and southern coasts of the Iberian peninsula at least from the 6th century BC...
sculpture? Picasso's shrug was grudgingly affirmative. He was always loath to admit Gauguin's role in setting him on the road to primitivism.
Critic Joel Silverstein in
Reviewny.com suggested Gauguin's style influenced painters such as
Julian HattonJulian Burroughs Hatton III is an American landscape abstract artist from New York City whose paintings have appeared in galleries in the United States and France. The New York Times described his painting style as "vibrant, playful, semi-abstract landscapes" while New York Sun art critic John...
,
Joan MiróJoan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
and
Ludwig von HofmannLudwig von Hofmann was a German painter. His style was impressionist, and he painted many paintings, such as his well-known "Rain", in a mixture of impressionist and classical. He competed in the Art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics. He was also blind in one eye.-References:*...
.
Gauguin's life inspired
W. Somerset MaughamWilliam Somerset Maugham , CH was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and, reputedly, the highest paid author during the 1930s.-Childhood and education:...
's novel
The Moon and SixpenceThe Moon and Sixpence is a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, told in episodic form by the first-person narrator as a series of glimpses into the mind and soul of the central character, Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker who abandons his wife and children abruptly to pursue his desire...
.
Mario Vargas LlosaJorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
based his 2003 novel
The Way to ParadiseThe Way to Paradise is a novel published by Mario Vargas Llosa in 2003.The novel is a historical double biography of Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin and his grandmother Flora Tristan, one of the founders of feminism. The book is divided into 11 chapters, each alternating narratives of...
on Gauguin's life.
Gauguin is also the subject of at least two operas: Federico Elizalde's
Paul Gauguin (1943); and
Gauguin (a synthetic life) by Michael Smetanin and
Alison CroggonAlison Croggon is a contemporary Australian poet, playwright, fantasy novelist, and librettist.-Life:Born in the Transvaal, South Africa, Alison Croggon's family moved to England before settling in Australia, first in Ballarat then Melbourne. She has worked as a journalist for the Sydney Morning...
.
Déodat de SéveracDéodat de Séverac was a French composer.-Biography:...
wrote his
Elegy for piano in memory of Gauguin.
The Japanese styled Gauguin Museum, opposite the Botanical Gardens of Papeari in Papeari, Tahiti, contains some exhibits, documents, photographs, reproductions and original sketches and block prints of Gauguin and Tahitians. In 2003, the
Paul Gauguin Cultural CenterThe Paul Gauguin Cultural Center was finished in 2003, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the death of Paul Gauguin, in Atuona, on Hiva ‘Oa, in the Marquesas Islands ....
opened in Atuona in the
Marquesas IslandsThe Marquesas Islands enana and Te Fenua `Enata , both meaning "The Land of Men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the southern Pacific Ocean. The Marquesas are located at 9° 00S, 139° 30W...
.
See also
- Flora Tristan
Flora Tristan was a socialist writer and activist. She was also one of the founders of modern feminism...
- Frederick Delius
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...
(client and friend)
- Paul Gauguin's exhibit at Les XX, 1889
Paul Gauguin's exhibit at Les XX, 1889 was the first important display of his works, and added to the recognition that he had begun to receive in 1888. The annual exhibition was organized by Les XX, and participation was by invitation only. Gauguin's exhibit comprised paintings from Martinique,...
- The Volpini Exhibition, 1889
The Exhibition at the Café des Arts in summer 1889 was arranged by Paul Gauguin and his circle, on the walls of a café just outside the gates of the Exposition universelle, and run by a certain Monsieur Volpini...
- Western painting
The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after which time more modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.Developments...
Further reading and sources
- Danielsson, Bengt, Gauguin in the South Seas, New York, Doubleday and Company, 1966.
- Mathews, Nancy Mowll, Paul Gauguin, an erotic life, Yale Univ. Press, 2001
- John Rewald
John Rewald was an American academic, author and art historian. He was known as a scholar of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cézanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Seurat, and other French painters of the late 19th century. He was recognized as a foremost authority on late 19th-century art...
, History of Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin, 1956; revised edition: Secker & Warburg, London 1978
- John Rewald Studies in Post-Impressionism, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc. 1986
- John Rewald, History of Impressionism, 1946
- John Rewald, Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
: Lettres à son fils Lucien Pissarro, 1943
- Paul Gauguin, with Charles Morice Noa Noa: The Tahiti Journal of Paul Gauguin, 1901
- Paul Gauguin's Intimate Journals, trans. (1923) Van Wyck Brooks [Dover, 1997, ISBN 0-486-29441-2
- Richardson, John
John Richardson is a British art historian and Picasso biographer.-Life and work:John Patrick Richardson was born as the elder son of Sir Wodehouse Richardson, D.S.O., K.C.B., Quarter-Master General in the Boer War, and founder of London and the British Empire's Army & Navy Stores...
. A Life Of Picasso, The Cubist Rebel 1907–1916. New York: Alfred A. KnopfAlfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
, 1991. ISBN 978-0-307-26665-1
- Sweetman, David. Paul Gauguin, A life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. ISBN 0-684-80941-9
External links