Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin (° June 7th 1848 - † May 9th 1903) is a post-impressionist painter . Leader of the School of Bridge-Swallow-hole and inspirer of the Nabis, his work is very largely regarded as that of a painter French major of the 19th century.

Biography

Its beginnings

His/her father is Louis Pierre Guillaume Gauguin (1814-1849). His/her mother, born Aline Chazal (1825-1867), was the girl of Flora Tristan. Born Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin with Paris in 1848, he is in addition downward landowners Spanish of South America and viceroy of the Peru. It spent besides the years of its more tender childhood to Lima. After having made its studies with Orleans, Gauguin embarks in the merchant navy then in the French navy and sails on the seas of the world during six years. On its return in France in 1870, it is converted into stockbroker to the purse in Paris and is a certain success in its business. It then shares a comfortable middle-class life with his wife, the Danish Put-Sophie Gad, and their five children: Emile, Aline, Clovis, Jean-Rene and Paul Rollon.

Its tutor, Gustave Arosa, business man and large art lover, introduced Gauguin near the Impressionist S. In 1874, it becomes acquainted with the painter Camille Pissarro and sees the first exposure of the impressionist current. Like its tutor, he becomes art lover and tests himself then with painting. He exposes consequently with the impressionists in 1876, 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1886.

Life of artist in France

In 1882, it gives up its employment with the purse (which is in a phase of bad economic situation) to be devoted to its new passion, the Peinture. That is not enough to live and it leaves food with his wife and her children in the family this one to Copenhagen. The power is on badly with in-laws and its business is not well. It decides to go back to Paris in 1885 to paint full-time, leaving woman and children in Denmark, not having the means of ensuring their subsistence.

Between 1886 and 1891, Gauguin lives mainly in Brittany (except for a voyage to the Panama and in Martinique in 1887 and 1888) where it is the center of a group of experimental painters known like the school of Bridge-Swallow-hole. Under the influence of the painter Emile Bernard, his style evolves/moves, it becomes more natural and more synthetic. He seeks his inspiration in indigenous art, the medieval stained glasses and the Japanese prints.

He discovers these last through Vincent Van Gogh in 1888 whereas they live together two months (from October at December) with Arles, in the south of France, spending their time painting. They work together and then paint the series on the Alyscamps. The two friends are very sensitive, know moments of depression and Gauguin, like Van Gogh, will try to commit suicide later. Their cohabitation turns badly and finishes on the famous episode of the cut ear of Van Gogh.

Life in Polynesia

In 1891, ruined, Gauguin embark for the Polynésie, thanks to a sale of its works whose success is ensured by two enthusiastic articles of Octave Mirbeau. It settles with Tahiti where it hopes to be able to flee the Western civilization and all that is artificial and conventional. It will pass from now on all its life in these tropical areas, initially in Tahiti then in the Marquesas Islands. It will return to France only once. Essential characteristics of its painting (of which the use of large surfaces of bright colors) do not know many changes. It particularly looks after the expressivity of the colors, the research of the prospect and the use of full and bulky forms. Influenced by the tropical environment and the Polynesian culture, its work gains in force, it carries out woodcarvings and painted its more beautiful paintings, in particular its major work, today with the Museum off Fine Arts of Boston: “From which do we come? What are we? Where do we go?”, that he regards itself as his pictorial will.

In Tahiti, it becomes acquainted with Téhura who becomes his model. It is very inspired and painted 70 fabrics in a few months. But after a few years of happiness, the administrative concern and more personnel (death of his preferred daughter Aline) undermine it. It also has health issues: a wound with the leg which does not cure since 1894, a crisis of Syphilis, so that it depresses and tries to commit suicide. It then decides to leave for the Marchionesses in order to find the inspiration. In 1901, here thus in Atuona (on the island of Hiva Oa), in the Marquesas Islands. It seems to him to be with the paradise. It goes quickly déchanter while realizing of the abuses the authorities and while trying to fight for the natives. Weakened, tired to fight, he dies on May 9th 1903. He is buried in the cemetery of Atuona. The tomb of Jacques Brel côtoie his.

Its experiments on the color and the whole of its work influenced the evolution of painting, in particular the Fauvisme of the 20th century.

The socialist feminist Flora Tristan was the grandmother of Paul Gauguin

Influence of Gauguin

In margin of the Impressionist , Gauguin was undoubtedly, with Paul Cézanne and Vincent Van Gogh, the painter of this end of XIXe century which had the most influence on the movements of painting of the XXe century. This influence lies probably less in its painting that in its writings, which contain formulas which, like says it Leon Gard, “flatter this leaning men for the mirific receipts, at the same time as their instincts of unchained young imps who saoulent indiscipline” : “How do you see this tree? wrote Gauguin, Vert? Put-therefore most beautiful green of your pallet; and this shade? Rather blue? Do not fear to paint it as blue as possible”, or: “Do not copy too much according to nature. Art is an abstraction. ” or: “You for a long time know what I wanted to establish: right all to dare.”

Similar formulas when they are not applied by a as true and endowed artist as Gauguin are obviously extremely dangerous and can lead to the chasm.

Gaugin animated the mystical movements and Symbolistes of Bridge-Swallow-hole, then Nabis where its theories on the Cloisonnisme and the Synthétisme were supported by the painters Emile Bernard, Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis and by the critic Symbolist Albert Aurier. To died from Gauguin, at the time of exposures paying homage to him, its ideas extended, not without extrapolation often, with the Picasso of the blue and pink period, then with the groups of the fawn-coloured (André Derain, Raoul Dufy), of the Cubiste S (Roger of Fresnaye), of the German expressionnists (Jawlensky, Mueller, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner).

Notes and references of the article

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