Paul Gauguin

The French painter and sculptor Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), seeking exotic environments, first in France and later in Tahiti, frequently combined the people and objects in his paintings in novel ways, evoking in the process a mysterious, personal world.

Paul Gauguin was born in Paris on June 7, 1848, to a French father, a journalist from Orléans, and a mother of Spanish-Peruvian descent. When Paul was 3 his parents sailed for Peru after the victory of Louis Napoleon; his father died on the way. Gauguin and his mother remained in Peru for 4 years and then returned to Orléans, where he attended a seminary. At the age of 17 he enlisted in the merchant marine.

In 1870 Gauguin began a career as a stockbroker and remained in this profession for 12 years. He married a Danish girl, Mette Sophia Gad, and seemed destined for a comfortable middle-class existence.

Beginnings as an Artist

Gauguin was an enthusiastic Sunday painter. The Salon of 1876 accepted one of his pictures, and he started a collection of works by impressionist painters. As time went on, his desire to paint became ever stronger, and in 1883, Gauguin, now 35, decided to give up business and devote himself entirely to painting. His wife, wishing to economize, took their five children to live with her parents in Copenhagen. Gauguin followed her, but he soon returned with his eldest son, Clovis, to Paris, where he supported himself by pasting advertisements on walls.

In 1886, with Clovis enrolled in a boarding school, Gauguin lived for a few months in the village of Pont-Aven in Brittany, then left for the island of Martinique, first stopping to work as a laborer on the Panama Canal. He returned to Pont-Aven in February 1888, gathered about him a group of painters, including Émile Bernard, and preached and practiced a style he called synthetism, which involved pure color patterns, strong, expressive outlines, and formal simplifications.

In October, Vincent van Gogh invited Gauguin to join him at Arles. Gauguin, proud, arrogant, sarcastic, and urbanely sophisticated, and Van Gogh, open and passionately needing human companionship, did not get along. When Van Gogh threatened him with a razor, Gauguin hurriedly left for Paris. There he resumed his bohemian existence until 1891, when he left France and the Western civilization he had come to deride and went to Tahiti.

Pre-Tahitian Paintings

Among Gauguin's masterpieces of this period are the Vision after the Sermon—Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1888) and the Yellow Christ (1889). In both paintings Breton peasants, to whom Gauguin was attracted as exotic, noncultivated types, figure prominently. Gauguin's usual bright colors and simplified shapes treated as flat silhouettes are present, but these paintings also reveal his symbolist leanings. Objects and events are taken out of their normal historical contexts. In the Vision Breton women observe an episode described in Genesis: Jacob wrestling with a stranger who turns out to be an angel. Gauguin suggests thereby that the faith of these pious women enabled them to see miraculous events of the past as vividly as if they were occurring before them. In the Yellow Christ Gauguin, using as his model a yellow wooden statue from a church near Pont-Aven, depicts Breton women as if they were in the presence of the actual Crucifixion.

Two Periods in Tahiti

When Gauguin arrived in Tahiti, he did not settle in the capital, Papeete, which contained Europeans, but lived with the natives some 25 miles away. He took a native girl as his wife, and she bore him a son. III and poor, he returned to France in August 1893, where to his delight he found that he had inherited a small sum from an uncle. In Paris he lived with flair, accompanied much of the time by a Javanese girl named Annah, who later disappeared with the contents of his studio. The exhibition of his Tahitian work in November was not successful financially. In early 1894 he went to Denmark and then to Brittany.

In 1895 an unsuccessful auction of Gauguin's paintings was held. He sailed for Tahiti that spring. He settled again among the natives, this time in the north. His health grew poorer; an ankle he had broken in Brittany did not heal properly, and he suffered from syphilis and strokes. He was harassed by the government authorities, whom he flouted but upon whom he had to depend for menial jobs in order to support himself. In 1901 he moved to the Marques as Islands. He died there, alone, of a stroke on May 8, 1903.

Tahitian Paintings

Gauguin once advised a friend to avoid the Greek and choose rather "the Persian, the Cambodians, and a little of the Egyptian." He epitomized the disenchantment of several postimpressionist painters with bourgeois Parisian existence; but whereas Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec sought the Parisian demimonde and Van Gogh fled to Arles, Gauguin achieved what was perhaps the most extreme break when he left Europe for a non-Western culture.

Gauguin's Tahitian paintings celebrate the lushness and mysterious splendor of his new environment. At the same time they are seldom correct pictures of Tahitian life, from an anthropological standpoint, but rather feature recastings and recombinations of objects and persons taken out of their normal settings, as was the case with several of his paintings done in Brittany. In La Orana Maria (1891) a Tahitian woman, her young son, and two women standing nearby are shown in the obvious attitudes of the Virgin and Child with attendant saints or worshiping angels. In Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1898), Gauguin's most ambitious painting in terms of size, number of figures, and probable overlay of meanings, there are Tahitian natives in unusual and probably contrived meditative poses and a foreboding primitive idol. In a way yet to be explained, the painting has to do with human destiny.

Gauguin's art, in several ways, anticipated trends in 20th-century modernism. For example, his unusual juxtapositions and startling anachronisms can be seen as precursors of the dislocations in the surrealist art of the 1920s and later. His whole life, as well as the style and subject matter of most of his art, was instrumental in paving the way for the positive acceptance of primitive art objects on the part of German expressionist and other 20th-century artists.

Further Reading

Dennis Sutton, ed., Paul Gauguin's Intimate Journals (1958), contains poignant accounts of Gauguin's struggle to survive after he left France. John Rewald, Gauguin (1938), has little analysis of the paintings but extensive quotations from Gauguin's writings. Robert Goldwater, Gauguin (1957), contains beautiful illustrations, including watercolors seldom seen, and good analyses of the paintings. Christopher Gray, Sculpture and Ceramics of Paul Gauguin (1963), is the authoritative work on this aspect of the artist. Wayne Andersen, Gauguin's Paradise Lost (1971), is a psychological interpretation of Gauguin's art and life. An important background study is John Rewald, Postimpressionism, vol. 1 (1956; 2d ed. 1962). □

Gauguin, Paul (b Paris, 7 June 1848; d Atuona, Marquesas Islands, 8 May 1903). French painter, printmaker, sculptor, and ceramicist, with Cézanne and van Gogh the greatest of the Post-Impressionists and like them a seminal figure in the development of modern art. His father was a radical journalist and his mother, who was half French and half Peruvian Creole, also had strong political convictions. They were opponents of the regime of Louis Napoleon (later Napoleon III), and in 1851 the family left France for exile in Peru. Gauguin spent part of his childhood in Lima before returning to France with his mother in 1855 (his father had died on the outward journey). He joined the merchant marine in 1865, in 1868 transferred to the French navy, and from 1871 worked successfully as a stockbroker. In the early 1870s he became a keen amateur painter and in 1874 he saw the first Impressionist exhibition. At about the same time he met Pissarro, who encouraged him, and began to make a collection of Impressionist pictures. He had a landscape accepted by the Salon in 1876 and his work was shown in the fifth to eighth (and last) Impressionist exhibitions (1880–6). In 1883 he gave up his employment to become a full-time artist, but had little success and sold his collection to support himself and his family.

After the last Impressionist exhibition Gauguin moved to Brittany (where he spent much of his time until 1890), having abandoned his family in Copenhagen (his wife was Danish). He was inspired not only by the rugged Breton landscape but also by the humble faith of the peasants in this region, which was still almost medieval in some of its ways. His main place of work in Brittany was Pont-Aven, where he became the centre of a group of artists who were attracted by his powerful personality and stimulating ideas about art. The pivotal work he produced there was The Vision after the Sermon, also known as Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1888, NG, Edinburgh), in which he broke away completely from the Impressionist style, using areas of pure, flat colour for expressive and symbolic purposes. In 1887–8 he visited Panama and Martinique, and in 1888 he spent a short time at Arles with van Gogh, a visit that ended in a disastrous quarrel as van Gogh suffered one of his first attacks of madness.

Gauguin had had a taste for colourful, exotic places since his childhood in Peru and in 1891 he left France for Tahiti. In the account he wrote of his life there, Noa Noa (first published in 1897), he said: ‘I have escaped everything that is artificial and conventional. Here I enter into Truth, become one with nature. After the disease of civilization, life in this new world is a return to health.’ Earlier he had found something of the same untainted quality—a ‘great rustic and superstitious simplicity’—among the peasants of Brittany, and his theory and practice of art reflected his desire to deal with earthy human feelings rather than the concerns of polite society. He was one of the first to find visual inspiration in the arts of ancient or primitive peoples, and he reacted vigorously against the naturalism of the Impressionists and the scientific preoccupations of the Neo-Impressionists. As well as using colour unnaturalistically for its decorative or emotional effect, he employed emphatic outlines forming rhythmic patterns suggestive of stained glass or Japanese colour prints (see Ukiyo-e). Gauguin also produced woodcuts in which the black and white areas formed almost abstract patterns and the tool marks were incorporated as parts of the design. Along with those of Edvard Munch, these prints played an important part in stimulating the major revival of the art of woodcut in the 20th century. His other work included woodcarving and pottery.

In Tahiti Gauguin endeavoured to ‘go native’ and despite the constant pressure of poverty he painted his finest pictures there. His colours became more resonant, his drawing more grandly simplified, and his expression of the mysteries of life more profound. In 1893 poverty and ill health forced him to return to France, but he had a financial windfall when an uncle died and he was back in Tahiti in 1895. At the end of 1897 he painted his largest picture, the celebrated allegory of life Where Do We Come From? Who Are We? Where Are We Going? (MFA, Boston), before attempting suicide (although he had deserted his family he had been devastated that year by the news of the death of his favourite daughter). In September 1901 he settled at Dominica in the Marquesas Islands, where he died two years later. Until his death he worked continuously in the face of poverty, illness (he had syphilis), and lack of recognition. He was often unable to obtain proper materials and was forced to spread his colours thinly on coarse sacking, but from these limitations he forged a style of rough vigour wholly appropriate to the boldness of his vision.

Gauguin was by no means forgotten in France during his years in the South Seas, but at the time of his death few would have agreed with his self-assessment: ‘I am a great artist and I know it. It is because I am that I have endured such suffering.’ His reputation was firmly established, however, when 227 of his works were shown at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1906, and his influence has been enormous. The Nabis were formed under his inspiration, and he was a leading figure of the Symbolist movement and one of the sources for Fauvism. Later, he was one of the major influences on the general non-naturalistic trend of 20th-century art. Because of the romantic appeal of his life and personality, particularly his willingness to sacrifice everything for his art, Gauguin (like his friend van Gogh) has also been an inspiration for popular and fictional biography, including the novel The Moon and Sixpence (1919) by Somerset Maugham, and the opera (1957) of the same title by John L. Gardner.

Gauguin, Paul (1848–1903). French Post-Impressionist painter, printmaker, sculptor, and ceramicist, born in Paris, the son of a journalist from Orléans and a Peruvian Creole mother. He spent his childhood in Lima, joined the merchant marine in 1865, and from 1872 worked successfully as a stockbroker. In the early 1870s he became a keen amateur painter and in 1874 he saw the first Impressionist exhibition. At about the same time he met Pissarro, who encouraged him, and began to make a collection of Impressionist pictures. He had a landscape accepted by the Salon in 1876 and his work was shown in the fifth to eighth (and last) Impressionist exhibitions (1880–6). In 1883 he gave up his employment to become a full-time artist, but had little success and sold his collection to support himself and his family. After the last Impressionist exhibition he moved to Brittany, abandoning his family, and until 1890 he spent much of his time at Pont-Aven, where he became the pivot of a group of artists who were attracted by his powerful personality and stimulating ideas about art. The most important work he produced there was The Vision after the Sermon, also known as Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1888, NG, Edinburgh), in which he broke away completely from the Impressionist style, using areas of pure, flat colour for expressive and symbolic purposes. In 1887–8 he visited Panama and Martinique, and in 1888 he spent a short time at Arles with van Gogh, a visit that ended in a disastrous quarrel as van Gogh suffered one of his first attacks of madness.

Gauguin had had a taste for colourful, exotic places since his childhood in Peru and in 1891 he left France for Tahiti. In the account he wrote of his life there, Noa Noa (1st pub. 1897), he said: ‘I have escaped everything that is artificial and conventional. Here I enter into Truth, become one with nature. After the disease of civilization, life in this new world is a return to health.’ His theory and practice of art reflected these attitudes. He was one of the first to find visual inspiration in the arts of ancient or primitive peoples (see Primitivism), and he reacted vigorously against the naturalism of the Impressionists and the scientific preoccupations of the Neo-Impressionists. As well as using colour unnaturalistically for its decorative or emotional effect, he employed emphatic outlines forming rhythmic patterns suggestive of stained glass or Japanese colour prints (see Ukiyo-e). Gauguin also produced woodcuts in which the black and white areas formed almost abstract patterns and the tool marks were incorporated as parts of the design. Along with those of Edvard Munch, these prints played an important part in stimulating the major revival of the art of woodcut in the 20th century. Gauguin's other work included woodcarving and pottery. In Tahiti he endeavoured to ‘go native’ and despite the constant pressure of poverty he painted his finest pictures there. His colours became more resonant, his drawing more grandly simplified, and his expression of the mysteries of life more profound. In 1893 poverty and ill health forced him to return to France, but he had a financial windfall when an uncle died and he was back in Tahiti in 1895. At the end of 1897 he painted his largest and most famous picture, the allegory of life Where Do We Come From? Who Are We? Where Are We Going? (MFA, Boston), before attempting suicide (although he had deserted his family he had been devastated that year by the news of the death of his favourite daughter). In September 1901 he settled at Dominica in the Marquesas Islands, where he died two years later. Until his death he worked continuously in the face of poverty, illness (he had syphilis), and lack of recognition. During his time in the South Seas he was often unable to obtain proper materials and was forced to spread his colours thinly on coarse sacking, but from these limitations he forged a style of rough vigour wholly appropriate to the boldness of his vision.

Gauguin was by no means forgotten in France during his years in the South Seas, but at the time of his death few would have agreed with his self-assessment: ‘I am a great artist and I know it. It is because I am that I have endured such suffering.’ His reputation was firmly established, however, when 227 of his works were shown at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1906, and his influence has been enormous. The Nabis were formed under his inspiration, he was a leading figure of the Symbolist movement and one of the sources for Fauvism. Later, he was one of the major influences on the general non-naturalistic trend of 20th-century art. Because of the romantic appeal of his life and personality, particularly his willingness to sacrifice everything for his art, Gauguin (like his friend van Gogh) has also been an inspiration for popular and fictional biography, including the novel The Moon and Sixpence (1919) by Somerset Maugham, and the opera (1957) of the same title by John L. Gardner.

Gauguin, (Eugène Henri) Paul (1848–1903) French painter, one of the greatest artists of post-impressionism. In his early career, Gauguin exhibited (1881–86) with the impressionists in Paris. The Vision After the Sermon (1888) is a key work in Gauguin's break with the naturalism of impressionism. His belief that form and pattern should represent mental images influenced symbolism. Gauguin developed his own ‘synthetist’ style of expressionism characterized by bold contours and large areas of unmodulated colour. Inspired by ‘primitive’ art, he left France for Tahiti in 1891. The late works, often of South Sea islanders, convey a sense of mystery and myth. They include Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? (1897) and Faa Iheihe (1898).

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