Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2012) Paul Gauguin Paul Gauguin, 1891 Birth name Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin Born 7 June 1848(1848-06-07) Paris, France Died 8 May 1903(1903-05-08) (aged 54) Atuona, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia Field Painting, sculpture, ceramics, engraving Movement Post-Impressionism, Primitivism Influenced Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque Gauguin Quotes A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes that he has got the biggest piece. A hint - 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 Art is either plagiarism or revolution Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy requires art. Otherwise, what would become of beauty? But I owe something to Vincent, and that is, in the consciousness of having been useful to him, the confirmation of my own original ideas about painting. And also, at difficult moments, the remembrance that one finds others unhappier than oneself. Civilization is what makes you sick Concentrate your strengths against your competitor's relative weaknesses I have always wanted a mistress who was fat, and I have never found one. To make a fool of me, they are always pregnant I shut my eyes in order to see I wished to suggest by means of a simple nude, a certain long-lost barbaric luxury 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 In art, one idea is as good as another. If one takes the idea of trembling, for instance, all of a sudden most art starts to tremble. Michelangelo starts to tremble. El Greco starts to tremble. All the Impressionists start to tremble It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one's will. Virtue, good, evil are nothing but words, unless one takes them apart in order to build something with them; they do not win their true meaning until one knows how to apply them Life is hardly more than a fraction of a second. Such a little time to prepare oneself for eternity! Many excellent cooks are spoilt by going into the arts Nothing so resembles a daub as a masterpiece. Oh yes! he loved yellow, this good Vincent, this painter from Holland - those glimmers of sunlight rekindled his soul, that abhorred the fog, that needed the warmth Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite The flat sound of my wooden clogs on the cobblestones, deep, hollow and powerful, is the note I seek in my painting The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite We never really know what stupidity is until we have experimented on ourselves Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (French pronunciation: [øˈʒɛn ãˈʁi ˌpol ɡoˈɡɛ̃]; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer. His bold experimentation with coloring led directly to the Synthetist style of modern art while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the cloisonnist style, paved the way to Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. He was also an influential proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms.[1] HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gauguin" \l "cite_note-1" [2] Contents  [hide]  · 1 Biography · 2 Artistic career · 2.1 Cloisonnism and Synthetism · 3 Historical significance · 3.1 Gauguin and Van Gogh · 4 Legacy · 5 List of paintings · 6 Gallery · 7 Self-portraits · 8 See also · 9 Further reading and sources · 10 References · 11 External links [edit] Biography He was born in Paris, France, to journalist Clovis Gauguin and Alina Maria Chazal, daughter of the half-Peruvian proto-socialist leader Flora Tristan, a feminist precursor. In 1849[3] the family left Paris for Peru, motivated by the political climate of the period.[citation needed] Clovis died on the voyage leaving eighteen-month-old Paul, his mother, and sister, to fend for themselves. They lived for four years in Lima with Paul's uncle and his family. The imagery of Peru would later influence Gauguin in his art. It was in Lima that Gauguin encountered his first art. His mother admired Pre-Columbian pottery;  – Inca pots that some colonists dismissed as barbaric, she collected. And one of Gauguin's few early memories of his mother was of her wearing the traditional costume of Lima, one eye peeping from beneath the mysterious one-eyed veil, her manteau, that all women in Lima went out in. "Gauguin was always drawn to women with a 'traditional' look. This must have been the first of the colourful female costumes that were to haunt his imagination."[4] At the age of seven, Gauguin and his family returned to France. They moved to Orléans to live with his grandfather. The Gauguins came originally from around the town and were market gardeners and greengrocers — gauguin means 'walnut-grower'. His father had split with family tradition to become a journalist in Paris.[5] He soon learned French, though his first and preferred language remained Peruvian Spanish, and he excelled in his studies. After attending a couple of local schools he was sent to a Catholic boarding school in La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, which he hated. He spent three years at the school. At seventeen, Gauguin signed on as a pilot's assistant in the merchant marine to fulfill his required military service.[citation needed] Three years later, he joined the French navy where he stayed for two years. He was somewhere in the Caribbean when he found out that his mother had died. In 1871, Gauguin returned to Paris where he secured a job as a stockbroker. His mother's very rich boyfriend, Gustave Arosa, got him a job at the Paris Bourse; Gauguin was twenty-three. He became a successful Parisian businessman and remained one for eleven years. In 1873, he married a Danish woman, Mette-Sophie Gad (1850–1920). Over the next ten years, they had five children, Emile (1874–1955), Aline (1877–1897), Clovis (1879–1900), Jean René (1881–1961), and Paul Rollon (1883–1961). By 1884, Gauguin had moved with his family to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he pursued a business career as a tarpaulin salesman. It was not a success: He could not speak Danish, and the Danish did not want French tarpaulins. Mette became the chief breadwinner, giving French lessons to trainee diplomats.[6] His middle-class family and marriage fell apart after 11 years when Gauguin was driven to paint full-time. He returned to Paris in 1885, after his wife and her family asked him to leave because he renounced the values they shared.[citation needed] Paul Gauguin's last physical contact with them was in 1891. Like his friend Vincent van Gogh, with whom in 1888 he spent nine weeks painting in Arles, Paul Gauguin experienced many bouts of depression and at one time attempted suicide. He traveled to Martinique in search of an idyllic landscape and worked as a laborer on the Panama Canal construction; he was dismissed from his job after only two weeks. I Raro te Oviri, 1891, Dallas Museum of Art In 1891, Gauguin sailed to French Polynesia to escape European civilization and "everything that is artificial and conventional".[7] He wrote a book titled Noa Noa describing his experiences in Tahiti. There have been allegations by modern critics that the contents of the book were fantasized and plagiarized.[8] Gauguin left France again on 3 July 1895, never to return. His time away, particularly in Tahiti and Hiva Oa Island, was the subject of much interest both then and in modern times due to his alleged sexual exploits.[9] He was known to have had trysts with several prepubescent native girls, some of whom appear as subjects of his paintings.[10] Gauguin outlived two of his children; his favorite daughter Aline died of pneumonia and son Clovis died of blood infection following a hip operation. Emile Gauguin worked as a construction engineer in the U.S. and is buried in Lemon Bay Historical Cemetery, in Florida. Jean René became a well-known sculptor and a staunch socialist. He died on 21 April 1961 in Copenhagen. Paola (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), Emile Marae a Tai (born 1899), with Pau'ura (1899–?), 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.[citation needed] In French Polynesia, toward the end of his life, sick and suffering from an unhealed injury, he got in legal trouble for taking the natives' side against French colonialists. On 27 March 1903, he was charged with libel against the governor, M Guicheray and given three days to prepare his defense. He was fined 500 francs and sentenced to three months in prison. On 2 April, he appealed for a new trial in Papeete. At the second trial, Gauguin was fined 500 francs and sentenced to one month in prison. At that time he was being supported by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard.[11] Suffering from syphilis, he died at 11 a.m. on 8 May 1903 of an overdose of morphine and possibly heart attack before he could start the prison sentence. His body had been weakened by alcohol and a dissipated life. He was 54 years old. Gauguin was buried in Calvary Cemetery (Cimetière Calvaire), Atuona, Hiva ‘Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia at 2 p.m. the next day. [edit] Artistic career In 1873, around the same time as he became a stockbroker, he started becoming an artist too. Gauguin began painting in his free time. His Parisian life centred on the 9th arrondissement. Gauguin lived at 21 rue la Bruyére. All around were the cafés made famous by the Impressionists. Gauguin also visited galleries frequently and purchased work by emerging artists. He formed a friendship with Pissarro and visited him on Sundays, to paint in his garden, and Pissarro introduced him to various other artists. In 1877 Gauguin, "moved downmarket and across the river to the poorer, newer, urban sprawls" of Vaugirard. Here, on the third floor at 8 rue Carcel, he had the first home in which he had a studio. He showed paintings in Impressionist exhibitions held in 1881 and 1882 - (earlier a sculpture, of his son Emile, had been the only sculpture in the 4th Impressionist Exhibition of 1879.) Over two summer holidays, he painted with Pissarro and occasionally Paul Cézanne. Poster of the 1889 Exhibition of Paintings by the Impressionist and Synthetist Group, at Café des Arts, known as the The Volpini Exhibition, 1889. Gauguin had been a student at the Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, just outside of Orléans, from the age of eleven to the age of sixteen. His subjects there included a class in Catholic liturgy; the teacher for this class was the Bishop of Orléans, Félix-Antoine-Philibert Dupanloup. Dupanloup had devised his own catechism to be lodged in the minds of the young schoolboys, and to lead them towards proper spiritual reflections on the nature of life. The three fundamental questions in this catechism were: "Where does humanity come from?" "Where is it going to?", "How does humanity proceed?". Although in later life Gauguin was vociferously anticlerical, these questions from Dupanloup's catechism obviously had lodged in his mind.[2] He left for Tahiti in 1891, looking for a society more elemental and simplistic than that of his native France. In addition to several other paintings that he created which express a highly individualistic mythology, he is thought to have completed this painting in 1897, although there is some evidence that the painting might not have been finished until 1898. Gauguin considered it a masterpiece and grand culmination of his thoughts. The curators of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where the painting now resides, are continuously updating their record of the painting's ownership history, suggesting that their list is not comprehensive. In any case, in 1898, Gauguin sent the painting to Georges-Daniel de Monfreid in Paris. Subsequently, it was consigned and sold to several other Parisian and European merchants and collectors until it was purchased by the Marie Harriman Gallery in New York in 1936. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston acquired it from the Marie Harriman Gallery on 16 April 1936. The painting was on display at the Art Institute of Chicago in the exhibit "Cézanne to Picasso" from February 17th to May 12, 2007.[3] It has since been returned to its home at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It is approximately five feet (1.5 m) high and over twelve feet (3.60 m) long. Gauguin—after vowing that he would commit suicide following this painting's completion, something he had previously attempted—indicated that the painting should be read from right to left, with the three major figure groups illustrating the questions posed in the title. The three women with a child represent the beginning of life; the middle group symbolizes the daily existence of young adulthood; and in the final group, according to the artist, "an old woman approaching death appears reconciled and resigned to her thoughts"; at her feet, "a strange white bird...represents the futility of words." The blue idol in the background apparently represents what Gauguin described as "the Beyond." Of its entirety he said, "I believe that this canvas not only surpasses all my preceding ones, but that I shall never do anything better—or even like it." The painting is an accentuation of Gauguin's trailblazing post-impressionistic style; his art stressed the vivid use of colors and thick brushstrokes, tenets of the impressionists, while it aimed to convey an emotional or expressionistic strength. It emerged in conjunction with other avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, including cubism and fauvism. 这是一幅充满哲理性的大型油画，据高更自己说，这是他以最大热情完成的作品。因为此前，他迫于贫困交加，绝望到了自杀的地步，被救之后，产生出强烈的创作欲望。他把在梦中的幻想与在塔希提生活的感受综合为这样的构图，并以《我们从哪里来？我们是谁？我们到哪里去？》为题，构思成这件巨作。画面色彩单纯而富神秘气息，平面手法使之富有东方的装饰性与浪漫色彩。在斑驳绚丽、如梦如幻的画面中，暗寓着画家哲理性的对生命意义的追问。 背景简介： 高更特别钟爱大溪地，他拒绝文明社会的虚假，追求那种简单、原始的生活。1897年，他开始了一幅他认为是此生最重要的画，以 表 关于同志近三年现实表现材料材料类招标技术评分表图表与交易pdf视力表打印pdf用图表说话 pdf 达他心灵最深的感触。这幅画在1898年完成，完工后他特别起了一个标题，并把标题写在画的左上角：“我们从哪里来？我们是什麽？我们往哪里去？”，并在右上角签上名，注明日期。他要所有的人都明白这幅的画象征性的意义。这种做法几乎是前无古人，后无来者，可见他对这幅画重视的一般。 在完成这幅画后，高更曾经企图自杀。我们虽然不知道真假，但是一连串的打击让他对人生感到愤概。那时候他的经济情况相当拮据，他的酗酒和梅毒又让他备受痛苦。特别是1891年的一封信，通知他21岁女儿的去世，让他万念俱灰。在当年的一封信中，他愤恨地说：“我的女儿已经死了，我现在不再需要上帝。”这幅画就是他整个人生哲学的代表。他问这些问题并不是因为他有答案。相反地，这幅画更像是高更的《创世纪》，他是在借着这幅画说，这些问题没有答案，人生是荒谬的。 On the right (Where do we come from?), we see the baby, and three young women - those who are closest to that eternal mystery. In the center, Gauguin meditates on what we are. Here are two women, talking about destiny (or so he described them), a man looking puzzled and half-aggressive, and in the middle, a youth plucking the fruit of experience. it is humanity's innocent and natural desire to live and to search for more life. A child eats the fruit, overlooked by the remote presence of an idol - emblem of our need for the spiritual. There are women (one mysteriously curled up into a shell), and there are animals with whom we share the world: a goat, a cat, and kittens. In the final section (Where are we going?), a beautiful young woman broods, and an old woman prepares to die. Her pallor and gray hair tell us so, but the message is underscored by the presence of a strange white bird. I once described it as "a mutated puffin," and I do not think I can do better. It is Gauguin's symbol of the afterlife, of the unknown (just as the dog, on the far right, is his symbol of himself). I copied this from a web site, just be sure to put it in your own words! Good luck Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, 1897, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA In 1887, after visiting Panama, he spent several months near Saint Pierre in Martinique, in the company of his friend the artist Charles Laval. At first, the 'negro hut' in which they lived suited him, and he enjoyed watching people in their daily activities.[12] However, the weather in the summer was hot and the hut leaked in the rain. He also suffered dysentery and marsh fever. While in Martinique, he produced between ten and twenty works (twelve being the most common estimate) and traveled widely and apparently came into contact with a small community of Indian immigrants, a contact that would later influence his art through the incorporation of Indian symbols. Gauguin, along with Émile Bernard, Charles Laval, Émile Schuffenecker and many others frequently visited the artist colony of Pont-Aven in Brittany. By the bold use of pure color and Symbolist choice of subject matter the group is now considered a Pont-Aven School. Disappointed with Impressionism, he felt that traditional European painting had become too imitative and lacked symbolic depth. By contrast, the art of Africa and Asia seemed to him full of mystic symbolism and vigour. There was a vogue in Europe at the time for the art of other cultures, especially that of Japan (Japonism). He was invited to participate in the 1889 exhibition organized by Les XX. [edit] Cloisonnism and Synthetism The Yellow Christ (Le Christ jaune), 1889, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY Under the influence of folk art and Japanese prints, Gauguin's work evolved towards Cloisonnism, a style given its name by the critic Édouard Dujardin in response to Émile Bernard's method of painting with flat areas of color and bold outlines, which reminded Dujardin of the Medieval cloisonné enamelling technique. Gauguin was very appreciative of Bernard's art and of his daring with the employment of a style which suited Gauguin in his quest to express the essence of the objects in his art.[13] In The Yellow Christ (1889), often cited as a quintessential Cloisonnist work, the image was reduced to areas of pure color separated by heavy black outlines. In such works Gauguin paid little attention to classical perspective and boldly eliminated subtle gradations of color, thereby dispensing with the two most characteristic principles of post-Renaissance painting. His painting later evolved towards Synthetism in which neither form nor color predominate but each has an equal role. Paul Gauguin, Te aa no areois (The Seed of the Areoi), 1892, The Museum of Modern Art Living in Mataiea Village in Tahiti, he painted "Fatata te Miti" ("By the Sea"), "Ia Orana Maria" (Ave Maria) and other depictions of Tahitian life. He moved to Punaauia in 1897, where he created the masterpiece painting "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" and then lived the rest of his life in the Marquesas Islands, returning to France only once, when he painted at Pont-Aven. His works of that period are full of quasi-religious symbolism and an exoticized view of the inhabitants of Polynesia. In Polynesia, he sided with the native