Paul Gauguin was a French artist, printmaker and sculptor, whose works have been assigned to Post-Impressionism, Sythetism and Symbolism. A painter, who experimented with color and aspired to express spiritual and emotional states in a "primitive" way, he was also well known for his creative collaboration with Vincent van Gogh and his self-imposed banishment in Tahiti, French Polynesia.
Background
Ethnicity:
Gauguin's father came from Orléans, France, and the artist's mother had French and Peruvian roots.
Paul Gauguin, in full Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin, was born on June 7, 1848 in Paris, France, to Clovis Gauguin, a liberal journalist, and Aline Marie Chazal, a daughter of Flora Tristan, an activist. Gauguin had an elder sister, Marie.
Education
Pushed by the unstable political situation in France, related to the Napoleon III's coup d'état in 1848, Paul Gauguin's family fled from Paris to Peru in 1851, where Gauguin's father planned to found work in a newspaper. However, he died on the way, and Gauguin's mother stayed with Gauguin and his sister in Lima with the relatives of her uncle, where they spent the next four years.
In 1855, the family came back to France, where Gauguin's mother settled in Paris to work as a dressmaker, leaving her children in care of their paternal grandfather in Orléans, where Gauguin completed his formal education. After studying at the prestigious Catholic boarding school, Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, from 1859 to 1862, Gauguin became a student of the Loriol Institute in Paris, a naval preparatory school. He then returned to Orléans, where he spent his final year at the Lycée Jeanne d'Arc.
Paul Gauguin was introduced to art by the businessman, Gustave Arosa, who became the legal guardian of the family after Gauguin's mother death in 1867. With the help of the influential art patron and collector, Gauguin started to receive art lessons and attend a workshop, where he had an opportunity to draw from model. It was through Arosa's rich collection, that Paul Gauguin discovered art of Eugene Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, as well as the pre-Impressionist Barbizon school of French landscape painting.
The start of Paul Gauguin's career can be counted from his service as a pilot's assistant in the merchant marine, which he joined in 1865. Three years later, Gauguin enlisted in the French Navy and served there for the next two years.
Upon his return to Paris in 1871, Paul Gauguin landed a job as a stockbroker with the help of the businessman, Gustave Arosa, the close friend and the legal guardian of the Gauguin family. Gauguin achieved success in business and lived a prosperous life for about the next ten years.
In 1873, Paul Gauguin took up painting as a leisure activity. He later forged a friendship with Pissarro, who helped him to enhance painting skills and drawing techniques and introduced him to other artists, mostly Impressionists, including Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. In 1876, Gauguin's Landscape at Viroflay was accepted to the annual Paris Salon and, four years later, he took part in the fifth Impressionist exhibition, in which he also participated in 1881 and 1882.
Although the crash of the French stock market made Gauguin lose his job as a stockbroker, he regarded the occurrence as a positive course of events, because it would allow him to "paint every day." His savings quickly dwindled, starting the financial worries, that were to plague him for the rest of his life. The artist unsuccessfully looked for employment with art dealers, while continuing the countryside trips to paint with Pissarro. His wife and five children were forced to return to Denmark at the end of 1884. Gauguin joined them briefly, but, unable to reconcile his artistic ambitions with family life, decided to leave his family later that year. In 1885, he journeyed with his eldest son to Paris. Gauguin exhibited 19 paintings and a carved wood relief at the eighth and last Impressionist show the next year.
Paul Gauguin spent some time in Brittany that same year. His paintings, produced there, in contrast to the bright, naturalistic scenes of the impressionists, concentrated on the dour qualities of the Breton country and the simplistic beliefs of its peasant folk. His Vision After the Sermon, The Breton Shepherdess Landscape and The Yellow Christ are among the major works of the Brittany period.
In 1887, Gauguin traveled to Martinique with his friend, the artist Charles Laval. While there, the painter produced numerous works, often estimated to be between ten and twelve. Tropical Vegetation and By the Sea, dating to the period, showed his growing depart from Impressionism, as he was now using the blocks of color in large, unmodulated planes.
In the late 1880's, Paul Gauguin became the leader of the so-called Pont-Aven school, that brought together many artists, including Émile Bernard and Paul Sérusier. He also developed a new manner of expression, that he named synthetism. The synthetists used color and form in a new way, boldly contouring objects, flattening forms and juxtaposing large areas of pure color for emotional impact.
At the end of 1888, Gauguin spent several months in Arles with the lonely impoverished painter, van Gogh, whom he had met in Paris two years earlier. Although the visit resulted in some fine drawings and paintings, it ended unhappily in a quarrel with van Gogh, who made an attempt to cut off his own ear, and Gauguin's departure from Arles.
Early in 1891, seeking for a greater freedom and more remote environment to work in, Gauguin held an auction of his paintings to raise funds and then left for the South Pacific island of Tahiti. His disillusionment with French colonial life drove him into the interior of the island. In moving to Tahiti, far from making a complete break with the European tradition, Gauguin brought with him a personal archive, which included photographs of classical Greek sculpture and those of earlier 19th-century paintings.
Finding no artistic relics of the older civilization in Tahiti, Gauguin inserted idols and other figures into his painting, based on photographs of Eastern and Western works of art. He also carved numerous wooden utensils and other objects as substitutes for native carvings, which he couldn't find. He depicted the imaginary deities and superstitions of the Tahitian natives and portrayed the ideal stature and physique of the people. One of the most famous works of Gauguin's early Tahitian period is a 1892 canvas, titled Spirit of the Dead Watching.
Sickness and poverty forced Gauguin to leave for Paris in 1893. His project of a publication travelogue on his Tahitian experience, titled Noa Noa, illustrated with his own woodcuts, was coolly received, and he returned to Tahiti two years later. One of the major examples of Gauguin's works from this second and final Tahitian period was Whence Come We? Who Are We? Where Are We Going?, a loosely constructed allegory of the stages of human existence.
In September 1901, Paul Gauguin took up residence on the island of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas, where he constructed a house, that he named "the house of pleasure." The degenerative effects of syphilis negatively impacted Gauguin's mobility, and he focused on drawing and writing, in particular his memoir, Avant et après (Before and After), which saw publication only after his death, in 1923. In his last works, Gauguin conjured up an ideal condition of native life beyond time and reality.
Orchard under the Church of Bihorel (Children in the Pasture)
The Artist's Children, Impasse Malherne
Still Life with Red Mullet and Jug
Skaters in Fredericksberg Park
Portrait of a Seated Man
Stabble near Dieppe
In the Forest Saint Cloud II
Two Vases of Flowers and a Fan
Rouen at Spring
Abandoned Garden in Rouen
The Seine at the Pont d'Iena
Winter's End
Two Cows in the Meadow
Flowers and Japanese Book
Man with a Toque
Port de Grenelle
Conversation
Double Portrait of a Young Girl (Mademoiselle Lafuite)
Clay Jug and Irin Mug
Mette Gauguin in an Evening Dress
The Farm in Grue
Still Life with Interior
Boy by the Water
Blue Barge
Hillside
Self-Portrait
Coastal Landscape
Fruit in a Bowl
Cliff near Dieppe
Osny, the Gate of Busagny Farm
A Little Washerman
Pere Jean's Path
Portrait of Isidore Gauguin
Flowers and Carpet
Coastal Landscape from Martinique
Bathing Place
Village Street, Osny
Apple Trees in Blossom
Bouquet of Flowers
Meadow in Martinique
Clovis Gauguin Asleep
Portrait of a Child (Aline Gauguin)
A Little Cat
Garden in Rue Carcel
Landscape with Cows in an Orchard
Fire by the Water
The Seine in Paris
Tree Linen Road, Rouen
Donkey by Lane
Still Life with Carafe and Ceramic Figure
Stream in Osny
Geese on the Farm
Mountain Landscape
Winter Landscape
Corner of the Garden Rue Carsal
Garden under Snow
Bust of a Nude Girl
Flowers and Carpet (Pansies)
Willows
Evening Primroses in the Vase
Aube the Sculptor and His Son
Mandolin on a Chair
Pond with Ducks (Girl Amusing Herself)
Bordeaux Harbour
Landscape with Poplars
To Make a Bouquet
The Seine Opposite the Wharf de Passy
Quarry Hole in the Cliff
Harbour Scene, Dieppe
In the Forest Saint Cloud
Houses at Vaugirard
Suzanne Sewing
Bare Trees
Landscape at Pont-Aven
Watering Place
Bathing, Dieppe
Stabble near Dieppe
Rouen Suburb
Tree in the Farm Yard
Flowers and a Bird
Lilac Bouquet
Tomatoes and a Pewter Tankard on a Table
Martinique Landscape
Autumn Landscape (Farm and Pond)
Farm in Brittany
Working the Land
Pears and Grapes
The Forest Path
Street in Rouen
Blue Roofs of Rouen
Palm Trees on Martinique
Nasturtiums and Dahlias in a Basket
Osny, Rue de Pontoise, Winter
Pont-Aven Woman and Child
Normandy Landscape: Cow in a Meadow
The Queen's Mill
Port de Javel
Riverside (Breton Landscape)
Sunken Lane
Quarries at Pontoise
Geese in the Meadow
Landscape
Near Rouen
Still Life with Profile of Laval
Suburb under Snow
Young Girl Dreaming
Still Life with Oranges
At the Pond
Port de Javel
Portrait of Ingeborg Thaulow
The Vase of Peonies
The Forest Edge
Tree in the Farm Yard
Daisies and Peonies in Blue Vase
Women Bathing (Dieppe)
Chicken Coop
Quarries at Pontoise II
The Garden in Winter, Rue Carcel
Vase with Flowers on the Window
Landscape near Osny
Pots and Boquets
Vaugirard Church
A Henhouse
Street in Rouen
At the Window
Around the Huts
The Square Pond
Two Girls Bathing
Cows on the Seashore
Banks of the Oise
Washerwomen at Pont-Aven
Gratte Roosters Path
Bouquet
Clovis
Apples, Jug, Iridescent Glass
Tropical Conversation
Notre Dame des Agnes
Lollichon's Field and the Church of Pont-Aven
Still Life with White Bowl
Oestervold Park, Copenhagen
Pissarro's Garden, Pontoise
Huts under Trees
The Road Up
Vase of Flowers
Horse and Cow in a Meadow
The Vase of Nasturtiums
Aline Gauguin and One of her Brothers
Ingeborg Thaulow
Cattle Drinking
Four Breton Women
Fruit
Portrait of Claude Antoine Charles Favre
Red Hat
Portrait of Aline
The Port of Rouen
Rocks and Sea
Politics
While living in the commune of Papeete, Tahiti, Paul Gauguin contributed a lot to a local periodical, Les Guêpes (The Wasps), which spoke against the colonial government. The artist was named the newspaper's editor in February 1900, serving in that capacity till his return to France a year later. The periodical was filled with slimy attacks on the governor and officialdom under Gauguin's editorship.
Views
Influenced by the diversity of the natural world of French Polynesia, Paul Gauguin positioned his paintings as a philosophical rumination on the implication of human existence and also as the search of the religious fulfillment and the harmony with nature.
Gauguin's unconventional lifestyle, in particular, his voluntary exile in the far civilizations and the abandon of his four children for the sake of art, became synonymous with the absolute artistic freedom and the complete liberation of original cultural background.
Quotations:
"In art, all who have done something other, than their predecessors, have merited the epithet of revolutionary; and it is they alone, who are masters."
"Don't paint too much direct from nature. Art is an abstraction. Study nature, then brood on it and treasure the creation, which will result, which is the only way to ascend towards God – to create like our divine master."
"I am trying to put into these desolate figures the savagery, that I see in them and which is in me too... Dammit, I want to consult nature as well, but I don't want to leave out what I see there and what comes into my mind."
"There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite."
"Civilization is what makes you sick."
Personality
Paul Gauguin was characterized by many of his contemporaries as a proud, arrogant, sarcastic and sophisticated person.
A fan of Impressionism and avant-garde movement, he built up a personal collection of works by such artists, as Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet and Johan Barthold Jongkind between 1876 and 1881.
Quotes from others about the person
Vincent van Gogh: "He's physically stronger than we are, so his passions must also be much stronger than ours. Then he's the father of children, then he has his wife and his children in Denmark and, at the same time, he wants to go right to the other end of the globe to Martinique. It's horrifying, all the vice versa of incompatible desires and needs, which that must cause him."
Interests
Philosophers & Thinkers
Arthur Schopenhauer, Stéphane Mallarmé
Artists
Camille Pissarro, Giotto, Raphael, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Eugene Delacroix, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne
Connections
Paul Gauguin married a woman from Denmark, named Mette-Sophie Gad, on November 22, 1873. They had five children together, one girl, Aline, and four boys, Émile, Clovis, Jean René and Paul Rollon. The marriage ended eleven years later, when Gauguin was obliged to paint full-time.
In his travelogue, titled Noa Noa (1901), Gauguin claimed, that he married a thirteen-year-old girl, Teha'amana (Tehura) or Pahura (Pau'ura) a Tai, during his sojourn on Tahiti. Pahura bore him two children. The first child, a girl, was born in 1896 and died few days after her birth. The second child, Émile Marae a Tai, born in 1899, was transferred from Tahiti to Chicago in 1963 by the French journalist, Josette Giraud, and became an artist as his father.
During his lifetime, Paul Gauguin had other mistresses, who gave birth to several of his children as well. These were Juliette Huais (who gave birth to their daughter, Germaine Chardon, an artist) and a French Polynesian, Mari-Rose (who gave birth to another daughter of Gauguin).
Gauguin: His Life & Works in 500 Images
An expert account of the post-Impressionist artist, Paul Gauguin, who defied convention to pursue his art in the South Seas.
2014
Paul Gauguin
The volume explores the often contradictory history of the artist, considering the scandalous rumors, that surrounded him, the inspirations for his work, the influences of his contemporaries and his painful death.
1995
Paul Gauguin
Clever illustrations and story lines, together with full-color reproductions of Paul Gauguin's actual works, give children a light, yet realistic overview of this artist's life and style.
1992
Paul Gauguin
This extensive publication traces Gauguin's artistic development through reproductions of his masterworks of both painting and sculpture, from the multifaceted self-portraits and sacred paintings of his period in Brittany, and the idyllic, wistful paintings and archaic, mystical sculptures from Tahiti, to the late works, made during his last years on the Marquesas Islands.
2015
Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist
Surveying the full scope of his career-spanning experiments in different media and formats – clay, works on paper, wood and paint, as well as furniture and decorative friezes – this volume delves into his enduring interest in craft and applied arts, reflecting on their significance to his creative process.
2017
Paul Gauguin: A Journey to Tahiti
The book explores the life and work of the artist during his time in Tahiti and provides photographs and paintings from his years there.
2001
Paul Gauguin: A Bio-Bibliography
The comprehensive research guide and annotated bibliography of Paul Gauguin includes information on more than 1500 books and articles on the artist, as well as a comprehensive chronology and list of exhibitions.