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| {{Infobox artist | |||
| | bgcolour = #76A8FF | |||
| | name = Paul Gauguin | |||
| | image = Paul Gauguin 1891.png | |||
| | caption = Gauguin, c. 1891 | |||
| | birth_name = Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin | |||
| | birth_date = {{birth date|1848|6|7|df=y}} | |||
| | birth_place = ], ] | |||
| | death_date = {{death date and age|1903|5|8|1848|6|7|df=y}} | |||
| | death_place = ], ], ] | |||
| | field = Painting, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, drawing | |||
| | training = | |||
| | movement = ], ], ], ] | |||
| | works = | |||
| | influenced = | |||
| | patrons = | |||
| | awards = | |||
| }} | |||
| '''Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin''' ({{IPA-fr|øʒɛn ɑ̃ʁi pɔl ɡoɡɛ̃|lang}}; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French ] painter, ], ], ], ] and writer. After his death he was recognized for his experimental use of colour and ] style that were distinguishably different from ]. His work was influential to the French ] and ] revival, the ] movement, and many modern artists such as ] and ]. His bold experimentation with colour led directly to the Synthetist style of ], while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the ] style, paved the way to ]. | |||
| ==Biography== | |||
| ===Lima and the Merchant Navy=== | |||
| Gauguin was born on 7 June 1848 in Paris, ], to journalist Clovis Gauguin and Aline Marie Chazal Tristán, daughter of feminist precursor and socialist, ].<ref>Cachin (1992), 12</ref> Disheartened by the outcome of the ], Clovis intended to move his family to Lima and start his own newspaper, enticed by the political climate of the period. However, he died of a ruptured ] as their ship passed through the ] in 1849.<ref>Bowness (1971), 3</ref> Aline and her young children spent nearly five years in Lima,<ref>Cachin (1992), 13</ref> supported by Paul's uncle and his family. It was a privileged early existence for Gauguin, who retained an intense visual recollection of this time throughout his life, which would prove to have an impact on his art.<ref>Bowness (1971), 3-4</ref><ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 16</ref> | |||
| In 1861 Gauguin and his family moved from ] to Paris, at which time Gauguin prepared for the Naval Academy entrance exam, but failed to appear for the test. Aged seventeen in December 1865, he enlisted for the apprenticeship position of ''officer's candidate'' in the Merchant Navy. An unremarkable pupil, he frequently succumbed to the urge to wander off on his own. When he was nineteen, he went so far as to run away into the forest of ] on the premise of the ] imagery of the traveller with his stick and bundle over his shoulder. Gauguin's own hung handkerchief, full of sand.<ref>Cachin (1992), 14</ref> Gauguin's mother passed away in 1867, leaving guardianship of the family with his mother's friend Gustave Arosa, a businessman and private art collector. His daughter, Marguerite Arosa, did some painting of her own and likely introduced Gauguin to the basics of ].<ref>Bowness (1971), 4-5</ref> He sailed the world with nearly continuous tours until 1871, reaching South America, the Mediterranean, the frozen North, and saw naval action in the ].<ref>Cachin (1992), 14</ref><ref>Bowness (1971), 4-5</ref> | |||
| ===Stock broker, early artistic career=== | |||
| ]]] | |||
| In 1872 Gauguin returned to Paris and, under the guidance of Gustave Arosa, was set up with a position as a stockbroker at the Paris stock exchange.<ref>Bowness (1971), 4</ref> In November 1873 Gauguin married a young Danish woman in Paris, Mette Sophie Gad. They had five children: Emile, Aline, Clovis, ] and Pola.<ref>Walther (2006), 8</ref> It is not exactly clear when Gauguin began painting, although we do know his first landscapes date from 1873–74 and that one of them was exhibited at the ] in 1876. ] was quick to spot the amateur's talent and enthusiasm, and so began an influential relationship which would last more than ten years. Gauguin was an admirer of ], which his interiors and figures suggest. It's believed they met through Pissarro. Degas purchased a number of Gauguin paintings for himself and also arranged for dealers to buy his work.<ref>Cachin (1992), 16</ref> Gauguin began considering painting for a living in 1882 after he lost his job due to the French ].<ref>Goulding (2013), 133</ref> | |||
| In November 1883 Gauguin moved his family to ] in an effort to limit expenses and succeed as a full-time artist, but their relationship did not survive the discovery of his artistic talent and Mette took the children to ] six months after arriving.<ref>Cachin (1992), 21</ref><ref>Walther (2006), 8</ref> Despite this, they never divorced.<ref>Walther (2006), 8</ref> It was at this time that his paintings indicated an interest in the work of ], who always remained suspicious of Gauguin for stealing his ideas.<ref>Bowness (1971), 5</ref> Gauguin eventually joined his family in Denmark and took a job as a sales representative for a canvas manufacturer, but he was deeply unhappy living there. In June 1885 Gauguin returned to Paris with one of his sons, Clovis. The family would never be whole again. During this turbulent period of transitions, Gauguin wrote friends Pissarro and ], indicating his struggle and that he envisioned more immediate success, such as was the case for him with the stock exchange.<ref>Cachin (1992), 19-21</ref> | |||
| ===Martinique and Brittany=== | |||
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| | image1 = Gauguin, Paul - Still Life with Profile of Laval - Google Art Project.jpg | |||
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| | caption2 = ''Tropical Vegetation'', 1887, ] | |||
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| In July 1886 he moved to ] in ], a few kilometers from the sea. For the first time in his life Gauguin devoted himself to painting and, inspired by the Breton people and landscape, made his first innovative strides in subject matter, composition and technique.<ref>Cachin (1992), 26-29</ref> He set out to Panama in April 1887 with his young painter friend, ].<ref>Walther (2006), 14</ref> Their intended final destination was the small, nearly uninhabited island of ], not far from the shores of ]. However, they quickly ran out of money and had to work as laborers on the ], after which they decided to move to ], a land they had admired in their journey passing west. By June they had found a hut to dwell in and Gauguin was ready to paint. The results were a sumptuous break from the ] of Pissarro, and letters to Schuffenecker indicate tremendous excitement and contentment from Gauguin. | |||
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| | image1 = Paul Gauguin 132.jpg | |||
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| | caption1 = ''Seascape with cow (At the edge of the cliff)'', 1888, ] | |||
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| He traveled widely, apparently coming into contact with a small community of Indian immigrants, a contact that would later influence his art through the incorporation of Indian symbols. Stricken ill with ] and ], Gauguin was forced to cut their adventure short and returned to France in November 1887.<ref>Cachin (1992), 31-33</ref> Gauguin's love of the tropics may have been an escapist measure, but it was also an attempt to rediscover the happiness of his childhood in South America.<ref>Walther (2006), 15</ref> Gauguin finished eleven known paintings during his stay in Martinique, many of which seem to be derived from his hut. He recycled some of his figures and sketches in later paintings, like the motif in ''Among the Mangoes''<ref name="vangoghmuseum"></ref> Rural and indigenous populations remained a popular subject in Gauguin’s work after he left the island. | |||
| While briefly in Paris during the winter of 1887–88, Gauguin sold his first works of art to ], including pottery and some of his Martinique paintings.<ref>Cachin (1992), 35</ref> Gauguin then spent the majority of 1888 in Brittany, which was a time of budding originality and intense production from him.<ref>Walther (2006), 17</ref> This year on the French coast was a pivotal point in his development, where he explored his growing obsession with tonality. His interest in ] crescendoed with '']'' and ''Seascape with Cow (At the edge of the cliff)'', a radical expanse of sweeping flat colour and interlocking abstract patterns from a bird's eye view. It establishes the tendencies he would later explore in Tahiti, and can be seen as major works of ] and ].<ref>Cachin (1992), 35-45</ref> Gauguin was finally showing the world on his terms, sacrificing everything to style; stripped of exotic props, romanticism and idylls. He aimed to show the original character of his subjects in a simple way.<ref>Walther (2006), 17</ref> | |||
| ===Tahiti and Paris=== | |||
| ]'', 1892, ]]] | |||
| ]]] | |||
| After more than two months of traveling, he reached ] on 9 June 1891. Gauguin, who was looking for the most uncivilized people and unspoiled nature, was disappointed with the drab colonial port and ] influence.<ref>Cachin (1992), 67-69</ref><ref>Goulding (2013), 133</ref> Shortly after arriving he attended the funeral of ], last king of ], and painted an unflattering portrait commission which made him undesirable in the community. In late September, he moved to ], a district some 80km from town. There he found a place that lived up to his modest dreams; Tahitians living a simple life off the earth, and a dazzling countryside to bewitch his imagination.<ref>Cachin (1992), 69-70</ref> He began living with a thirteen-year-old ] girl, who sat for some of his finest paintings of 1892–93.<ref>Cachin (1992), 77</ref> In May 1892 Gauguin described himself as being at the end of his tether, around the time that he made the first prototype for his ] series, which culminated in 1894 with his radical stoneware masterpiece.<ref>Cachin (1992), 90</ref><ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 19</ref> Despite producing magnificent work, he had not sold a painting in eighteen months; was penniless and anxious to return home where he believed would have to give up painting for good. Further blows at this time, two of his staunchest supporters, Theo van Gogh and critic ] died in quick succession.<ref>Cachin (1992), 90-91</ref> | |||
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| | image1 = Paul Gauguin - Fatata te Miti (By the Sea).jpg | |||
| | width1 = 280 | |||
| | caption1 = ''By the Sea'', 1892, ] | |||
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| | caption2 = ''Annah la Javanaise'', 1894, private collection | |||
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| Gauguin secured a third-class passage on ''Duchaffault'' and boarded on 4 June 1893 bound for France. He arrived in ] on 30 August with four francs in his pocket. Gauguin pinned all his hopes on this return to Paris; from his artistic and financial well-being, to the companionship of friends. Instead, he found himself nearly isolated. Theo and ], Albert Aurier and ] were all dead, Laval was dying, and his relations with Pissarro and ] had deteriorated.<ref>Cachin (1992), 91-93</ref> With the help of Degas, ] and ], Gauguin's first significant one-man show took place at ]'s on 10 November 1893, featuring at least forty of his canvases from Tahiti. Reception to his exhibition was generally poor, appreciated by Degas, critic Thadée Natanson and a small clique of intellectuals, it was summarily dismissed and chastised by collectors and other artists including Pissarro, ] and ], the latter two of whom Gauguin openly disliked and had been eager to show his aesthetic distance from.<ref>Cachin (1992), 94-95</ref><ref>Walther (2006), 59</ref> Critics complained that the work was too crude and befitting of an audience of children.<ref>Walther (2006), 62</ref> | |||
| In 1894 he returned to ceramics and sculpture. Later that year he went back to Marie-Jeanne Gloanec's in Pont-Aven, to retrieve art which he had left there for safe keeping before going to Tahiti years earlier. She refused despite not even liking the work, contending that they had become her property in exchange for hospitality. He sued her to get it back and lost.<ref>Cachin (1992), 103</ref> Gauguin then suffered a fracture during an altercation that broke out when some sailors harassed his ] mistress, Annah la Javanaise, and her pet monkey. His leg never healed properly. Finally, he put up some of his work for auction at ] to finance his return to Tahiti, from which he intended never to return.<ref>Cachin (1992), 97-103</ref> The auction was disappointing.<ref>Bowness (1971), 13-14</ref> After a final visit to Mette and the children in Copenhagen—where he broke down and tearfully confessed sacrificing his family for the sake of his ideas—a defeated, alcoholic Gauguin departed from Paris en route to the South Seas on 28 June 1895.<ref>Cachin (1992), 103, 105</ref><ref>Bowness (1971), 11</ref> | |||
| ===Return to French Polynesia and death=== | |||
| ]]] | |||
| After a journey of more than 70 days spanning four months, including stopovers in ] and ], Gauguin landed in Papeete on 8 September 1895.<ref>Cachin (1992), 106</ref><ref>Bowness (1971), 14</ref> His initial re-entry was disheartening, alarmed at the increasingly ] Tahiti.<ref>Walther (2006), 72</ref> Gauguin was almost constantly ill from this point onward, requiring six prolonged hospital stays between July 1896 and February 1901, including routine medical care between hospitalizations. His only daughter, Aline, was a favourite of his and whom he dedicated the series of notes ''Cahier pour Aline'' to.<ref>Cachin (1992), 106-107</ref> News of her death in the winter of 1897 deepened his depression.<ref>Goldwater (2004), 17, 19</ref> Jeanne Goupil, the youngest daughter of a wealthy Papeete lawyer, sat for ''Vaïte Goupil'', one of Gauguin's rare commissions for the colonial community in Tahiti.<ref>Cachin (1992), 109</ref> | |||
| He then suffered a series of ] and began contemplating suicide, just before undertaking his most ambitious and famous painting, '']''<ref>Bowness (1971), 14</ref> The 4.5m length undoubtedly inspired by the fresco painters he admired, had humble beginnings done straight onto sackcloth full of knots and wrinkles.<ref>Cachin (1992), 112, 128</ref> The piece is his major image of the human condition,<ref>Walther (2006), 80</ref> as well as his self-described last will and testament, which he worked on day and night in haste for a month. He believed it to be the best thing he had ever done and that he would never do anything better. The upper corners in chrome yellow like a fresco with damaged corners on a gold wall, inscribed on the left and signed on the right.<ref>Cachin (1992), 112</ref> After completing his masterpiece, Gauguin retreated to the hills to die like an animal. He attempted to commit suicide by swallowing ], but took too much and promptly vomited it back up.<ref>Walther (2006), 80</ref> | |||
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| | image1 = Paul Gauguin - Deux Tahitiennes.jpg | |||
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| | caption1 = '']'', 1899, ] | |||
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| | caption2 = ''Riders on the Beach II'', 1902, Stavros Niarchos collection | |||
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| Gauguin did very little painting in 1899 and 1900. His mindset had become more pessimistic and existential, seeing futility as perpetual to humanity and that all human endeavor was as likely to result in evil as in good.<ref>Bowness (1971), 15</ref> Poverty stricken and in poor health, he took mindless jobs to earn a little money. ] was a young admirer of his and corresponded with Gauguin, convincing him to exhibit with the ]. Gauguin was outraged when he learned that nine paintings he shipped to ]—including ''Where Do We Come From?...''—had been sold for the incredibly low sum of 1000 francs.<ref>Cachin (1992), 116</ref> | |||
| In 1901 Gauguin moved to ] on the island of Dominique (now ]), within the ].<ref>Walther (2006), 88</ref> Upon his arrival on 16 September, he received a triumphant welcome from the local poor, who mistakenly viewed him as their champion against ], based on his attacks on the government and Chinese in his obscure journalism venture the previous year. Despite this, he would end up defending a group of natives in court against administration, anyway, as well as feud with members of the ] mission. He built his last hut, christened ''House of Pleasure'', took his final girl as a mistress, and made a closing plunge into semi-native life and productive isolation. In the remaining 18 months of his life, Gauguin painted, wrote, drew and sculpted at a relatively abundant pace, considering his health and time devoted to local affairs.<ref>Cachin (1992), 116, 119</ref> On 27 March 1903, he was charged with ]ing 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, Gauguin appealed for a new trial in Papeete. At the second trial he was fined 500 francs and sentenced to one month in prison.<ref>Rewald (1986), 168–215</ref> His final pictures were rapidly executed, more simplified and stripped of the allegory of his Tahitian work, creating masterworks of formal simplicity in the process.<ref>Cachin (1992), 119, 124</ref> On 8 May 1903, Gauguin died of an apparent heart attack due to complications from untreated ],<ref>Walther (2006), 91</ref> and may have also been suffering from ].{{#tag:ref|2014 DNA testing by the Field Museum in Chicago, on teeth which are almost certainly Gauguin's, raised some doubt about historical claims that he suffered from syphilis. This was based on the absence of mercury, which would have been used to treat syphilis at the time. However, since he neglected his cholera it may be suspected that he didn't treat his syphilis, either. Ultimately, both scenarios are speculative.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Gauguin-could-be-cleared-of-syphilisby-the-skin-of-his-teeth/31842 |title=Gauguin could be cleared of syphilis by the skin of his teeth |newspaper=] |accessdate=12 August 2014}}</ref>|group=notes}} He was buried the following day in ]. | |||
| {{wide image|Woher kommen wir Wer sind wir Wohin gehen wir.jpg|700px|'']'', 1897–98, ]}} | |||
| ====Gauguin and Degas==== | |||
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| | caption1 = ''Riders on the Beach'', 1902, ] | |||
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| Although Gauguin made some of his early strides in the world of art under Pissarro, Degas was Gauguin's most admired contemporary artist and a great influence on his work from the beginning, with his figures and interiors as well as a carved and painted medallion of singer Valérie Roumi.<ref>Cachin (1992), 16, 19, 123</ref> He had a deep reverence for Degas' artistic dignity and tact.<ref>Cachin (1992), 17</ref> It was Gauguin's healthiest, longest lasting friendship, spanning his entire artistic career until his death. | |||
| In addition to being one of his earliest supporters, including buying Gauguin's work and persuading dealer Paul Durand-Ruel to do the same, there was never a public support for Gauguin more unwavering than from Degas.<ref>Cachin (1992), 16</ref> Gauguin also purchased work from Degas in the early to mid-1870's and his own ] predilection was probably influenced by Degas' advancements in the medium.<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 26</ref> At Gauguin's final notable appearance in France in November 1893, which Degas chiefly organized, his work was poorly received. Among the mocking were Monet, Renoir and former friend Pissarro. Degas praised the work and admired the exotic sumptuousness of Gauguin's conjured folklore.<ref>Cachin (1992), 85, 95</ref> Gauguin's late canvas ''Riders on the Beach'' recalls Degas' horse pictures which he started in the 1860's, specifically ''Racetrack'' and ''Before the Race'', testifying to his enduring effect on Gauguin.<ref>Cachin (1992), 123</ref> | |||
| ====Gauguin and Van Gogh==== | |||
| ]]] | |||
| ], ''Paul Gauguin (Man in a Red Beret)'', 1888, ]]] | |||
| After returning from Martinique in November 1887, Gauguin's new work from the tropics garnered positive attention from Theo van Gogh and his painter brother, Vincent, who soon after arranged a show in ] at which Gauguin was included. The two artists initially hit it off and exchanged paintings. Gauguin took one of Van Gogh's early still lifes of sunflowers, while Van Gogh selected one of Gauguin's Breton landscapes. The beginning of their infamous friendship was originally a complex four-way relationship that also involved Theo—who represented and supported Gauguin financially—and Émile Bernard, friend of Vincent.<ref>Cachin (1992), 47-49</ref> Bernard and Gauguin became direct competitors in emerging Cloisonnism, which even Van Gogh himself practiced as evident with '']''. Despite some creative similarities and a mutual love of japonism, Gauguin and Van Gogh had a very different approach to paint application, theory and use of contour, which Gauguin criticized at one point as an inexactitude and contributed to their later disagreement.<ref>Walther (2012), 46</ref> | |||
| ]<ref group = notes>Gauguin described ''Human Misery'' as his most successful painting done in Arles, while with Vincent van Gogh. With it, he is also making the point that to be obsessed with the depiction of the visible world, as Van Gogh was, was to remain enslaved to naturalism. Above all, Gauguin sought poetic mystery. Bowness (1971), 8</ref>]] | |||
| ]]] | |||
| Vincent longed for a rural artist's commune, a scenario that he viewed as ].<ref>Walther (2012), 49-50</ref> Gauguin shared this interest to an extent, but was more compelled to discover a natural paradise and express utopia with his paintings.<ref>Walther (2006), 43</ref> Gauguin agreed to live and work with Vincent in ], despite having paranoia that the arrangement was created with ulterior motives, particularly from Theo.<ref>Walther (2012), 50</ref> But Gauguin, always with little to no money, accepted Theo's financial support for committing to the visit.<ref>Bowness (1971), 8</ref> Despite leaving Paris at roughly the same time, Vincent reached Arles a number of weeks before Gauguin. Van Gogh anticipated the meeting with almost uncontrollable excitement, decorating and furnishing their "yellow house" studio. He bought comfortable furniture for Gauguin and ] to hang on the walls. Van Gogh was amazed at Gauguin's soft yet bold variety and was determined to paint beautifully for him.<ref>Walther (2012), 50, 54</ref> He believed their was an element of destiny in their companionship, as two outsiders whose art was practically unsalable. | |||
| Gauguin arrived on 23 October 1888 to the delight of Van Gogh, who gladly took the position of student and put Gauguin on an authoritative pedestal.<ref>Bowness (1971), 8</ref> For a period they were productive, working out motifs together, comparing results and arguing over concepts. Van Gogh even bowed to Gauguin's theories and began emphasizing outline and order in his work. But Van Gogh could not restrain his vigorous spontaneity any longer and became more certain of his own talent and technique than ever before. Gauguin thought he was a victim of a game of intrigue between the two brothers, suspecting that they wanted to belittle him. Vincent was disappointed that his honest will to submit and learn found no recognition. These artistic differences and feelings soon had an effect on their pride and ability to understand each other.<ref>Walther (2012), 55-56</ref> | |||
| Gauguin wrote to Theo and conveyed with importance that he must leave. Van Gogh saw his dream crumbling and became melancholy and eventually ill, however, Gauguin still cared for Van Gogh and would not leave him in a suffering state. Van Gogh was suspicious of Gauguin secretly leaving and would check on him in the middle of the night to make sure he was still there.<ref>Walther (2012), 57</ref> On the evening of 23 December, Gauguin went for a walk and Van Gogh followed him. Gauguin heard him and calmly confronted Van Gogh, who was visibly disturbed and allegedly holding a straight razor. Van Gogh returned to the studio but Gauguin was shaken by the event and spent the night at a hotel. The two men never saw each other again, but went on to correspond regularly in 1889–90. Upon returning to the yellow house, Van Gogh cut off the bottom of his ear with the razor. After he stopped the hemorrhaging with a handkerchief, he ran with his severed piece of ear to the town brothel and gave it to a prostitute, before returning home to sleep. Van Gogh was then secured by police and taken to the town hospital. Gauguin secretly left Arles shortly after.<ref>Walther (2012), 56-57</ref> | |||
| In 1889 Gauguin painted ''Caribbean Woman with Sunflowers''. In 1901 he painted ''Still Life with Sunflowers'' shortly before leaving Tahiti. Sunflowers were unknown in the region at the time and he had requested seeds from George-Daniel de Monfreid two years earlier, so that he may grow them in his garden. With these pictures, Gauguin is almost certainly reminiscing about Vincent van Gogh.<ref>Cachin (1992), 124</ref> | |||
| ==Repertoire== | |||
| ===Technique and style=== | |||
| ]]] | |||
| ]'', 1889, ]]] | |||
| Gauguin's initial artistic guidance was from Pissarro, but the relationship left more of a mark personally than stylistically. Gauguin's masters were ], ], ], Manet, Degas and Cézanne.<ref>Walther (2006), 7</ref><ref>Cachin (1992), 16, 123</ref><ref>Bowness (1971), 5, 15</ref> His own beliefs, and in some cases the psychology behind his work, were also influenced by philosopher ] and poet ].<ref>Bowness (1971), 10, 15</ref> | |||
| ]]] | |||
| By accounts, Gauguin, like some of his contemporaries employed a technique for painting on canvas known as ''à l'essence''. For this, the oil (]) is drained from the paint and the remaining sludge of pigment is mixed with turpentine. He may have used a similar technique in preparing his monotypes, using paper instead of metal, as it would absorb oil giving the final images a matte appearance he desired.<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 67</ref> He also proofed some of his existing drawings with the aid of glass, copying an underneath image onto the glass surface with watercolour or gouache for printing. Gauguin's ] were no less innovative, even to the avant-garde artists responsible for the woodcut revival happening at that time. Instead of incising his blocks with the intent of making a detailed illustration, Gauguin initially chiseled his blocks in a manner similar to wood sculpture, followed by finer tools to create detail and tonality within his bold contours. Many of his tools and techniques were considered experimental. This methodology and use of space ran parallel to his painting of flat, decorative reliefs.<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 23-26</ref> | |||
| Starting in Martinique, Gauguin began using ] in close proximity to achieve a muted affect.<ref>Cachin (1992), 33</ref> Shortly after this he also made his breakthroughs in non-representational colour, creating canvases that had an independent existence and vitality all their own.<ref>Cachin (1992), 52</ref> This gap between surface reality and himself displeased Pissarro and quickly led to the end of their relationship.<ref>Cachin (1992), 45</ref> His human figures at this time are also a reminder of his love affair with Japanese prints, particularly gravitating to the naivety of their figures and compositional austerity as an influence on his primitive manifesto.<ref>Cachin (1992), 33</ref> For that very reason, Gauguin was also inspired by ]. He sought out a bare emotional purity of his subjects conveyed in a straightforward way, emphasizing major forms and upright lines to clearly define shape and contour.<ref>Walther (2006), 13, 17</ref> With his French Polynesia compositions, he attempted to dissect with minute nuances the differences between civilized and primitive worlds, ultimately creating a condemning comparison.<ref>Walther (2006), 70</ref> Gauguin also used elaborate formal decoration and colouring in patterns of abstraction, attempting to harmonize man and nature.<ref>Walther (2006), 50</ref> His depictions of the natives in their natural environment are frequently evident of serenity and a self-contained sustainability.<ref>Walther (2006), 75</ref> This complimented one of Gauguin's favourite themes, which was the intrusion of the ] into day-to-day life, in one instance going so far as to recall ] tomb reliefs with ''Her Name is Vairaumati'' and ''Ta Matete''.<ref>Walther (2006), 53</ref> | |||
| In an interview with ] published on 15 March 1895, Gauguin explains that his developing tactical approach is reaching for ].<ref>Walther (2006), 13</ref> He states: | |||
| :Every feature in my paintings is carefully considered and calculated in advance. Just as in a musical composition, if you like. My simple object, which I take from daily life or from nature, is merely a pretext, which helps me by the means of a definite arrangement of lines and colours to create symphonies and harmonies. They have no counterparts at all in reality, in the vulgar sense of that word; they do not give direct expression to any idea, their only purpose is to stimulate the imagination—just as music does without the aid of ideas or pictures—simply by that mysterious affinity which exists between certain arrangements of colours and lines and our minds.<ref>Cachin (1992), 170-171</ref> | |||
| In an 1888 letter to Schuffenecker, Gauguin explains the enormous step he had taken away from Impressionism and that he was now intent on capturing the soul of nature, the ancient truths and character of its scenery and inhabitants. Gauguin wrote: | |||
| :Don't copy nature too literally. Art is an abstraction. Derive it from nature as you dream in nature's presence, and think more about the act of creation than the outcome.<ref>Cachin (1992), 38</ref> | |||
| ===Primitivism by way of Cloisonnism and Synthetism=== | |||
| ] | |||
| Gauguin practiced Impressionism for over a decade but became increasingly dissatisfied with the technique and had completely rejected it by 1887.<ref>Goulding (2013), 133</ref><ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 19</ref> It wasn't until Brittany after Martinique that he came into his own and began producing his most personal and celebrated work. A number of progressive artists were working there at the time, including Émile Bernard and ], both of whom played a significant role along with Gauguin in creating Synthetism and Cloisonnism. Gauguin initially gave Sérusier a lesson in colouring which resulted in ''The Talisman'',<ref> ]. Retrieved 6 August 2014.</ref> one of the seminal achievements and authorities on Synthetism. Although Gauguin and Bernard met in 1886, they did not play a key role in each other's lives until that summer of 1888. Bernard had already been experimenting with strong outlines and pure colour, but struggled to advance the application within his overall results. Gauguin, who had been conceptualizing a primitive manifesto since Martinique, gravitated to Bernard's method and produced the momentous and innovative results that eluded Bernard.<ref>Cachin (1992), 49</ref> For the remainder of his life Bernard complained that Gauguin had usurped from him the invention of Synthetism and Cloisonnism, however, Bernard himself may be indebted to ]'s ideas of simplification and synthesizing personal sensations with colour harmony and contrast.<ref>Goldwater (2004), 23</ref> | |||
| Writer and critic ] was the first to coin the term Cloisonnism, comparing the canvases he was seeing to a ] enameling and goldsmithing technique, in which fillets of metal compartmentalized individual surfaces to be filled with stained glass, jewels or precious stone.<ref>Walther (2012), 46</ref><ref>Walther (2006), 17</ref> Despite being excluded from the ], Gauguin and his friends were able to hang their pictures in ]. They called themselves the ''Impressionist and Synthetist Group'', and it was the first and perhaps only Synthetism or Cloisonnism-related shared show to ever occur. The display had little impact on the public but it confirmed Gauguin's leadership role in the movements, challenging the the avant-garde primacy of Seurat's ].<ref>Bowness (1971), 9</ref> | |||
| ===Monotype, oil transfer drawing, ceramics, woodcuts, zincography=== | |||
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| | image1 = Gauguin - Suite Volpini K01Aa.jpg | |||
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| | caption1 = ''Leda (Design for a China Plate)'', 1889, zincograph on yellow paper with watercolour and gouache, ] | |||
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| | image2 = Gauguin Aha Oe Feii monotype.jpg | |||
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| | caption2 = ''Aha oe feii'', 1894, watercolour monotype with pen and red and black ink, ] | |||
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| Gauguin began making prints in 1889, highlighted by a series of zincographs commissioned by Theo van Gogh known as the ''Volpini Suite'', which also appeared in the Cafe des Arts show of 1889. Gauguin didn't waver from his printing inexperience and made a number of provocative and unorthodox choices, such as a zinc plate instead of limestone (]), wide margins and large sheets of yellow poster paper.<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 19</ref><ref>Bowness (1971), 11</ref> The result was vivid to the point of garish, but foreshadows his more elaborate experiments with colour printing and intent to elevate monochromatic images. His first masterpieces of printing were from the ''Noa Noa Suite'' of 1893–94 where he essentially reinvented the medium of woodcutting, bringing it into the modern era. He started the series shortly after returning from Tahiti, eager to reclaim a leadership position within the avant-garde and share pictures based on his French Polynesia excursion. These woodcut prints were shown at his unsuccessful 1893 show at Paul Durand-Ruel's, and most were directly related to paintings of his in which he had revised the original composition. They were shown again at a small show in his studio in 1894, where he garnered rare critical praise for his exceptional painterly and sculptural effects. Gauguin's emerging preference for the woodcut was not only a natural extension of his wood reliefs and sculpture, but may have also been provoked by its historical significance to medieval artisans and the Japanese.<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 19-24</ref> | |||
| Gauguin started watercolour monotyping in 1894, likely overlapping his ''Noa Noa'' woodcuts, perhaps even serving as a source of inspiration for them. His techniques remained innovative and it was an apt medium for him as it didn't require elaborate equipment, such as a printing press. Despite often being a source of practice for related paintings, sculptures or woodcuts, his monotype innovation offers a distinctly ethereal aesthetic; ghostly afterimages that may express his desire to convey the immemorial truths of nature. His next major woodcut and monotype project wasn't until 1898–99, known as the ''Vollard Suite''. He completed this enterprising series of 475 prints from some twenty different compositions and sent them to dealer Ambroise Vollard, despite not compromising to his request for salable, conformed work. Vollard was unsatisfied and made no effort to sell them. Gauguin's series is starkly unified with black and white aesthetic and may have intended the prints to be similar to a set of ], in which they may be laid out in any order to create multiple panoramic landscapes.<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 26-29</ref> This activity of arranging and rearranging was similar to his own process of repurposing his images and motifs, as well as a ] tendency.<ref>Cachin (1992), 119</ref> He printed the work on tissue-thin Japanese paper and the multiple proofs of gray and black could be arranged on top of one another, each transparency of colour showing through to produce a rich, ] effect.<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 30</ref> | |||
| ] | |||
| ]]] | |||
| In 1899 he started his radical experiment: oil transfer drawings. Much like his watercolour monotype technique, it was a hybrid of drawing and printmaking. The transfers were the grand culmination of his quest for an aesthetic of primordial suggestion, which seems to be relayed in his results that echo ancient rubbings, worn frescos and cave paintings. Gauguin's technical progress from monotyping to the oil transfers is quite noticeable, advancing from small sketches to ambitiously large, highly finished sheets. With these transfers he created depth and texture by printing multiple layers onto the same sheet, beginning with graphite pencil and black ink for delineation, before moving to blue crayon to reinforce line and add shading. He would often complete the image with a wash of oiled-down olive or brown ink. The practice consumed Gauguin until his death, fueling his imagination and conception of new subjects and themes for his paintings. This collection was also sent to Vollard who remained unimpressed. Gauguin prized oil transfers for the way they transformed the quality of drawn line. His process, nearly alchemical in nature, had elements of chance by which unexpected marks and textures regularly arose, something that fascinated him. In metamorphosing a drawing into a print, Gauguin made a calculated decision of relinquishing legibility in order to gain mystery and abstraction.<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 30-32</ref> | |||
| ]'', 1894, partially glazed Stoneware, ], Paris. The theme of ''Oviri'' is death, savagery, wildness. ''Oviri'' stands over a dead she-wolf, while crushing the life out of her cub. As Gauguin wrote to ], it is a matter of "life in death"]] | |||
| He worked in wood throughout his career, particularly during his most prolific periods, and is known for having achieved radical carving results before doing so with painting. Even in his earliest shows, Gauguin often included wood sculpture in his display, from which he built his reputation as a connoisseur of the so-called primitive. A number of his early carvings appear to be influenced by ] and ].<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 37</ref> In correspondence, he also asserts a passion for ] and the masterful colouring of ] and ].<ref>Cachin (1992), 180-181</ref> | |||
| Gauguin's attraction to carving may have begun in the Merchant Navy, where he probably took up ]. He produced many small sculpted pillars resembling ], portraying Tahitian women and Tahitian deities. Gauguin often valued his woodwork more than his paintings, and in an effort to secure a market and garner attention with the parisian audience while he way in French Polynesia, he maximized his physical experience on the islands by exploiting the tactile. He used local woods such as tamanu, pua and ironwood; created inlets with ], seed pearls and parrot fish teeth. With Gauguin's ''Tehura''—a name he used for his Polynesian companion, Tehamana—it declares that his preoccupation with synesthesia had found its way into his woodwork, playing up the botanical scents of Tahiti with fragrant pua wood and highlighting the ] flower behind her ear with gilt paint, representational of love and sensuality but intended to evoke ancestral secrets.<ref>Cachin (1992), 81</ref><ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 38-41</ref> | |||
| In 1894 Gauguin completed one of his most influential works, the large ceramic sculpture, ''Oviri''. She was a goddess devised by him meaning "savage", but it also alludes to the Tahitian god Oviri-moe-'aiihere meaning "wild one who sleeps in the wilderness".<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 146</ref> To make the piece he drew upon methods developed while at Ernest Chaplet's studio in the late 1880's, where he had created many smaller ceramics under the guise of Japanese technique and Peruvian inspiration. His stoneware process always struck a deep personal chord with him.<ref>Cachin (1992), 30</ref> Oviri is so primitive it seems to have manifested from the earth itself. It beguiles Gauguin's complex interplay that involves overturning conventional notions of the female as maternal, and the wolf as a predator; ''Oviri'' and her grotesque, distorted anatomy killing the wolf mid-snarl with the fate of its cub still in the balance.<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 146</ref> As the master of many mediums it's only fitting that ''Oviri''—found throughout his oeuvre of paintings, monotype, ceramics and woodcuts—is one of his most recognizable works of art. | |||
| ==Legacy== | |||
| ===Influence=== | |||
| ]]] | |||
| Painting was not enough for Gauguin, he wanted to experience it himself. He personified a new union of art and life, and in precursing this predominant 20th-century characteristic, he became one of the true pioneers of modernism,<ref>Walther (2006), 7</ref> who liberated the method and meaning of painting.<ref>Bowness (1971), 15</ref> Gauguin's innovative advancements in Cloisonnism, Synthetism and Primitivism had a significant impact on the emergence of ], ], ] and ].<ref>Cachin (1992), 45</ref><ref>Bowness (1971), 15</ref><ref>Goldwater (2004), 9</ref> His influence on Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, ] and ];<ref>Goldwater (2004), 21-22</ref> each in different ways, is a testament to the versatility and open-endedness of Gauguin. His self-imposed exile and rejection of ], nonetheless veiled by his own Eurocentric thinking, has opened up critical perspectives and changed how art history and colonial history is accounted for.<ref>Figura, Childs, Foster & Mosier (2014), 46</ref><ref>Cachin (1992), 127</ref> | |||
| Gauguin outlived two of his children; Aline died of pneumonia and Clovis died of a blood infection following a hip operation. Émile worked as a construction engineer in the U.S. and is buried in Lemon Bay Historical Cemetery in Florida. ] became a well-known sculptor and a staunch socialist. He died on 21 April 1961 in Copenhagen. ] (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 (born 1891) with Juliette Huais (1866–1955); Émile Marae a Tai (born 1899) with Pau'ura; and a daughter (born 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.<ref>Harrison Swain "Emile Gauguin Honor Guest at Artists' Ball" in ] 26 January 1966, pp. 15</ref> | |||
| ].]] | |||
| Gauguin's posthumous retrospective exhibitions at the ] in Paris in 1903 and an even larger one in 1906—considered one of the most influential art exhibitions ever held—had a powerful impact on the French avant-garde.<ref>Bowness (1971), 15</ref> ] was deeply affected by Gauguin's art and in the autumn of 1906, he made paintings of oversized nude women and monumental sculptural figures, which recalled the work of Gauguin's ''Oviri'' and showed his interest in ]. The power evoked by Gauguin's work led directly to '']'' in 1907.<ref>Cachin (1992), 102</ref><ref name=twsJun10a>{{cite news|author=]|title= Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time, and the Beauty That Causes Havoc|work= ]|year= 2001|url= http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/miller-01einstein.html|accessdate=10 June 2010}}</ref> The vogue for Gauguin's work started soon after his death. Many of his later paintings were acquired by the Russian collector ]. A substantial part of his collection is displayed in the ] and the ]. | |||
| According to Gauguin biographer ], Picasso as early as 1902 became a fan 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 ] 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.''<ref>Sweetman (1995), 563</ref> In addition to seeing Gauguin's work at Durrio's, Picasso also saw the work at Ambroise Vollard's gallery where both he and Gauguin were represented. | |||
| Concerning Gauguin's impact on Picasso, ] states: | |||
| :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.<ref>Richardson (1991), 461.</ref> | |||
| Both David Sweetman and John Richardson point to the Gauguin sculpture ''Oviri'', 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 printmaking, 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''."<ref>Sweetman (1995), 562-563.</ref> | |||
| According to Richardson: | |||
| :Picasso's interest in ] was further stimulated by the examples he saw at the 1906 Gauguin retrospective at the Salon d'Automne. The most disturbing of those ceramics (one that Picasso might have already seen at Vollard's) was the gruesome ''Oviri.'' Until 1987, when the ] 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 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 ] sculpture? Picasso's shrug was grudgingly affirmative. He was always loath to admit Gauguin's role in setting him on the road to Primitivism.<ref>Richardson (1991), 459.</ref> | |||
| ====In popular culture==== | |||
| ] | |||
| * Gauguin inspired ]'s 1919 novel '']''. ] based his 2003 novel '']'' on Gauguin's life, and that of his grandmother Flora Tristan. | |||
| * Gauguin is the subject of at least two operas: ]'s ''Paul Gauguin''; and ''Gauguin (a synthetic life)'' by Michael Smetanin and ]. ] wrote his ''Elegy'' for piano in memory of Gauguin. | |||
| * The 1986 Danish film ''Oviri'' directed by ], starring ] and ], is a biographical film. It follows Gauguin from the time he returns to Paris from Tahiti in 1893, where he must confront his family and former lover. It ends when he returns to Tahiti two years later. | |||
| * 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. In 2003 the ] opened in Atuona on the Marquesas Islands. | |||
| * In 2014 the painting ''Fruits sur une table ou nature au petit chien'' (1889), which had been stolen in London in 1970, was discovered in Italy with an estimated value of between €10m and €30m (£8.3m to £24.8m). The painting, together with a work by Pierre Bonnard, had been bought by a Fiat employee in 1975 at a railway lost property sale for 45,000 lira (about £32).<ref> ]. Retrieved 11 August 2014.</ref> | |||
| *Gauguin paintings are rarely offered for sale. His record sale price of $40.3 million came at ] auction house in New York in 2006, for his 1891 canvas ''L'Homme à la hache''.<ref> ]. Retrieved 11 August 2014.</ref> | |||
| ===Selected correspondence=== | |||
| On 20 October 1889, from Brittany, Gauguin replies to a lengthy letter from Vincent van Gogh, which he starts with the warm salutation "My dear Vincent," and eventually goes on to state: | |||
| :What I've concentrated on this year is simply peasant children strolling unconcernedly along the shore with their cows. Only, since I don't care for the ''trompe-l'oeil'' of ''al fresco'' painting or what have you, I'm trying to put into these dreary figures the wildness I see in them, which is in me, too. There is something medieval-looking about the peasants here in Brittany; they don't look as though they suspect for a moment that Paris exists or that it's 1889. Just the opposite of the Midi. Here everything is as rugged as the Breton language, closed tight (forever it seems).Their apparel, too, is little short of symbolic, influenced by the superstitions of Catholicism. See how the bodice forms a cross at the back, how they wrap their heads in black headscarves, like nuns. It makes their faces look almost Asiatic–sallow, triangular, dour. | |||
| :At the moment I'm doing a 50 canvas: some women gathering seaweed by the seashore. They look like boxes tiered at intervals, dressed in blue clothes and black headdresses despite the bitter cold. This compost they gather to fertilize their land is ochre coloured with tawny glints. ''Pink'' sand, not yellow, probably because of the damp–sombre sea. As I look at this every day, I suddenly sense the struggle to survive, a sadness, a submission to wretched laws . I am trying to capture that on canvas, not at random, but rationally, perhaps also exaggerating that certain stiffness in their poses, certain dark colour, etc. It may all be ''mannered'', but what is there in a painting that's natural? Since earliest times ''everything'' in pictures has been thoroughly conventional, intentional, hence, very mannered.<ref>Cachin (1992), 142</ref> | |||
| Gauguin on Impressionism, from his 1896–97 written account ''Diverses Choses'': | |||
| :I, an Impressionist artist, that is, an insurgent... Then came the Impressionists! They were the ones who pored over colour to the exclusion of all else, as a decorative effect, but not freely, still shackled by verisimilitude. For them, imaginary, make-believe landscapes do not exist, They looked, and what they saw was harmonious, but purposeless; the house built had no real foundation rooted in, and justified by, sensations perceived through colour. | |||
| :They focused their quest on the eye, not on the mysterious centre of thought, and from there lapsed into scientific considerations. Physics and metaphysics are two different things... They were dazzled by their initial triumph and thought there was nothing more to it than that. They are the officials of tomorrow, more terrifying than the officials of yesteryear.<ref>Cachin (1992), 181</ref> | |||
| In August 1897, some months after the death of his favourite child, Aline, Gauguin writes his composer friend William Molard: | |||
| :Since my childhood, misfortune has dogged me. Never a chance, never any happiness. Everything always against me, and I cry out: Oh God, if you exist, I accuse you of injustice, of malice. Yes, on hearing of my poor Aline's death, I doubted everything, I laughed in defiance. What use is virtue, hard work, courage, intelligence? Only crime is logical and makes any sense.<ref>Bowness (1971), 14</ref> | |||
| In March of 1899, Gauguin writes a letter to poet and critic ], which contains: | |||
| :Violence, monotony of tone, arbitrary colours, etc.—yes, it's probably all there; it ''is'' there. Sometimes, however, those repetitions of tone, those monotonous harmonies, in the musical sense of the word, are deliberate. Aren't they analogous to those Eastern chants sung by shrill voices and accompanied by resonant notes that are close to them, yet with enough contrast to have an enriching effect? Beethoven makes frequent use of them (if I've understood him correctly)—in the 'Pathétique' Sonata, for example. Delacroix, with his repeated harmonies of muted chestnut and violet, a dark mantle hinting at drama. You often go to the Louvre; think about what I'm saying as you take a good close look at Cimabue. Think, too, about the musical role colour will assume from now on in modern painting. Colour is vibration, in the same way as music, and is capable of capturing what is most general and, therefore, most elusive in nature: its inner power.<ref>Cachin (1992), 145</ref> | |||
| Gauguin on Renoir, from his 1903 journal ''Avant et après'' written shortly before his death: | |||
| :A painter who never learned to draw, yet draws well—that's Renoir... | |||
| :In Renoir's work everything is out of line: in fact, don't look for lines; there aren't any. As if by magic, a lovely patch of colour, an affectionate glimmer of light are expression enough. On the cheeks, as on a peach, a faint overlay of down ripples in a breeze of love that wafts its music to your ears. One would like to take a bite out of that cherry of a mouth, which, when it smiles, pearls those pointy little white teeth. Watch out, though—it has a cruel bite; those are women's teeth. Divine Renoir, who knows not how to draw... | |||
| :I saw a strange head at an exhibition on the Boulevard des Italiens. I don't know why, but I felt something happen in me. Why did I hear strange melodies while I looked at a painting? An ashen, scholarly head with eyes that don't stare at you, eyes that don't look, but listen. | |||
| :I read in the catalogue: ''Wagner'' by Renoir. Enough said.<ref>Cachin (1992), 186</ref> | |||
| ===Self-portraits=== | |||
| <gallery widths="150px" heights="150px" perrow="4"> | |||
| File:Paul Gauguin 200.jpg|''Self-portrait'', 1875–1877, ] | |||
| File:Self-Portrait by Paul Gauguin, 1885.jpg|''Self-portrait'', 1885, ] | |||
| File:Paul Gauguin 112.jpg|''Self-portrait'', 1888, ] | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 125.jpg|''Self-portrait'', 1889, ] | |||
| File:Paul Gauguin - Christ and the Garden of Olives.jpg|''Christ in the Garden of Olives'', 1889, (Gauguin's self-portrait), ] | |||
| File:Paul Gauguin - Jug in the Form of a Head.jpg|'']'', 1889, ] | |||
| Image:Gauguin portrait 1889.JPG|''Self-portrait'', 1889–1890, ] | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 111.jpg|''Self-portrait'', 1893, ] | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin Sel-Portrait 1893 Detroit Institute of Arts.JPG|''Self-portrait'', 1893, ] | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 110.jpg|''Self-portrait'', 1896, ] | |||
| File:Gauguin- Selbstbildnis dem Freund Daniel gewidmet -1896.jpg|''Self-portrait (for my friend Daniel)'', 1896, ] | |||
| File:Gauguin Autoritratto 1902.jpg|''Self-portrait'', 1902, ] | |||
| </gallery> | |||
| ===Gallery=== | |||
| For Gauguin's comprehensive catalogue, see ]. | |||
| <gallery widths="150px" heights="150px" perrow="4"> | |||
| Image:Gauguin Stillleben mit Fruchtschale und Zitronen.jpg|''Still-Life with Fruit and Lemons,'' (1880) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 036.jpg|''Four Breton Women,'' (1886) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 087.jpg|''Among the Mangoes,'' (1887) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 085.jpg|''Les Alyscamps,'' (1888) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 072.jpg|''Night Café at Arles, (Mme Ginoux),'' (1888) | |||
| Image:Gauguin Landscape from Bretagne.jpg|''Landscape from Bretagne,'' (1888) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 098.jpg|''Portrait of Madeleine Bernard,'' (1888) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 121.jpg|''Still-Life with Japanese Woodcut,'' (1889) | |||
| Image:Gauguin Meyer de Haan.jpg|''Meyer de Haan,'' (1889) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin - "In the waves" or "Ondine" - 1889.jpg|''In the Waves,'' (1889) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 056.jpg|''Tahitian Women on the Beach,'' (1891) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 031.jpg|''The Moon and the Earth (Hina tefatou),'' (1893) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 039.jpg|''Watermill in Pont-Aven,'' (1894) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 044.jpg|''The Midday Nap,'' (1894) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 113.jpg|''Day of the Gods'' (1894) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 062.jpg|''Child of God (Te tamari no atua),'' (1896) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 090.jpg|''Maternity,'' (1899) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 023.jpg|''Cruel Tales (Exotic Saying),'' (1902) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 074.jpg|''Young Girl with Fan,'' (1902) | |||
| Image:Paul Gauguin 079.jpg|''Landscape on La Dominique,'' (1903) | |||
| </gallery> | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| {{reflist|group=notes}} | |||
| ==Citations== | |||
| {{Reflist|3}} | |||
| ==Bibliography== | |||
| *{{cite book | author=Bowness, Alan |title=Gauguin | publisher=Phaidon Press Limited| year=1971 | id=ISBN 0 7148 1481 4}} | |||
| *Cachin, Françoise (1989, English translation 1992). ''Gauguin: The Quest for Paradise''. Gallimard; English translation by Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0 500 30007 0. | |||
| *C. Childs, Elizabeth; Figura, Starr; Foster, Hal; Mosier, Erika (2014). ''Gauguin: Metamorphosis''. Museum of Modern Art. ISBN 978 0 87070 905 0. | |||
| *Goldwater, Robert (1983, reprinted 2004). ''Gauguin''. ] ISBN 0 8109 9147 0. | |||
| *Goulding, Sarah (2008, reprinted 2013). ''History of Art: From the Middles Ages to Renaissance, Impressionism and Modern Art''. Flame Tree Publishing. ISBN 978 1 84451 329 1. | |||
| *] (1986). ''Studies in Post-Impressionism''. Harry N. Abrams Inc. ISBN 978 0 8109 1617 3. | |||
| *] (1991). ''A Life of Picasso, The Cubist Rebel 1907–1916.'' New York: ]. ISBN 978 0 307 26665 1. | |||
| *] (1995). ''Paul Gauguin, A Life''. New York City, New York: ]. ISBN 0 684 80941 9. | |||
| *F. Walther, Ingo (2006). ''Paul Gauguin''. Taschen. ISBN 978 3 8228 5986 5. | |||
| *F. Walther, Ingo (2012). ''Vincent van Gogh''. Taschen. ISBN 978 3 8365 3154 2. | |||
| ==Further reading== | |||
| *] (1966). ''Gauguin in the South Seas''. New York: ]. | |||
| *Gauguin, Paul; Morice, Charles (1901). ''Noa Noa: The Tahiti Journal of Paul Gauguin''. | |||
| *Gauguin, Paul (], translator; 1997). ''Gauguin's Intimate Journals''. Mineola, New York: ]. ISBN 978 0 486 29441 4. | |||
| *] (2001). ''Paul Gauguin, an Erotic Life''. New Haven, Connecticut: ]. | |||
| *Pichon, Yann le; translated by I. Mark Paris (1987). ''Gauguin: Life, Art, Inspiration''. New York: Harry N Abrams. ISBN 978 0 8109 0993 9. | |||
| *Cucchi, Roger, (1979). "Gauguin a la Martinique". | |||
| *] (1956; revised 1978). ''History of Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin'', London: ]. | |||
| *] (1946). ''History of Impressionism''. | |||
| *] (1943). ''Camille Pissarro: Lettres à son fils Lucien Pissarro''. | |||
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