Paul Gauguin a brief biography of the French artist, graphic artist and engraver is set out in this article.
Paul Gauguin short biography
The talented artist was born on June 7, 1848 in the family of a political journalist in Paris. Paul's family moved to Peru in 1849. There they planned to stay forever. But after the death of Gauguin's father, they moved to Peru with their mother. Here the boy lived until the age of 7. Then his mother took him to France. Gauguin learned French and showed aptitude for many subjects. The young man wanted to enter the nautical school, but, unfortunately, the competition did not pass.
But so fired up with the idea of \u200b\u200bthe sea, Paul went on a round-the-world voyage as an assistant pilot. Returning from around the world, he learned the sad news - his mother died.
In 1872, Gauguin received a position as a stock exchange broker in Paris. At the same time, he took up photography and collecting contemporary art. It was this hobby that prompted him to pursue art.
In 1873, Gauguin makes his first attempts to paint landscapes. Carried away by impressionism, he takes part in exhibitions and gains authority. Marry a Dane. Married to her, 5 children were born, but at the age of 35, he leaves his family, deciding to devote himself entirely to art.
In 1887, Paul decides to take a break from civilization and travels to Martinique and Panama. A year later, he returns to Paris and, together with Emile Bernard, his friend, he puts forward a synthetic theory of art. It is based on unnatural planes, colors and light. Written paintings in the style of the new theory were popular and the artist, having sold a large number of his creations, went to Tahiti. Here he begins writing an autobiographical novel.
In 1893 Gauguin returned to France. But the new works did not impress the public, and he could not earn much money at all. In order to find his inspiration, he again travels to the southern seas, continuing to paint.
The last years of the artist were overshadowed by a serious illness - syphilis. Mental anguish tormented his soul, and he tried to commit suicide in 1897. Paul Gauguin died in 1903 on the island of Hiva Oa.
Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin is one of the largest French representatives of post-impressionism along with Van Gogh and Cezanne. He was engaged in painting, graphics, and was also a sculptor. Participated in various exhibitions, was not popular among his contemporaries, was appreciated much later.
All his life Gauguin was a beggar, and now one of his paintings is fighting for the title of the most expensive in the world. This talented artist was born on June 7, 1848, his death occurred on May 8, 1903.
Childhood and early years
The future artist was born in Paris. His mother was French-Peruvian, from a wealthy family. Gauguin's father worked as a political journalist, was obsessed with some of the radical ideas of the Republicans. In parallel with this, the mother considered the most correct model of utopian socialism, she even wrote an autobiographical book on this topic.
In 1849, Paul's family boarded a ship bound for Peru. There they intended to stay until the end of their days, living in a prosperous family of the mother of the future artist. But these plans failed, as Clovis, Gauguin's father, died of a heart attack. The young man and his mother moved to Peru, where Paul lived until the age of seven, enjoying the views of exotic nature and a carefree existence.
At the age of seven, Alina, the creator's mother, decides to return to France in order to receive an inheritance from her father's side. There the boy learns French, shows extraordinary abilities in all subjects. He made an attempt to enter the nautical school, but did not pass the competition. As a result, young Paul is sent on a voyage around the world as a pilot's apprentice. Upon arrival in India, he learned about the death of his mother, who bequeathed him to build a career.
The first works of the creator
In 1872, the artist returned to Paris, where he received a position as an exchange broker, thanks to the connections of a friend of his mother. Concurrently, he was engaged in photography and collected modern paintings, this was one of the impetuses for Gauguin's future career.
Since 1873, Paul begins to create his first landscapes. Then he gets acquainted with Camille Pissarro, later they will be united by a strong friendship. Both artists were fond of impressionism, they participate in exhibitions and gradually gain prestige among collectors.
Abrupt paradigm shift
In 1887, Gauguin decided to get rid of the privileges of civilization, so he went on a trip to Panama and Martinique. But some physical illness forced the creator to return to Paris. A year later, together with his friend Emile Bernard, he put forward an original synthetic theory of art. They drew people's attention to unnatural colors, light and planes.
The theory of symbolism made an impression on people, so Paul was able to sell more than thirty of his works. The painter spent the proceeds on a trip to Tahiti, where he lived modestly, constantly being engaged in creativity. At the same time, he wrote an autobiographical novella.
The last years of the painter
1893 was marked for Gauguin's return to France. He shared several more works with the public, but this did not help to regain his former popularity, Paul earned very little money. After that, he again headed towards the southern seas, where he continued to paint.
In recent years, the artist suffered not only from syphilis, he was tormented by mental anguish. In 1897, he tried to commit suicide, but he failed to complete the matter. Six years later, Paul Gauguin died on the island of Hiva Oa.
Family and personal life
In 1973, Paul married a young Dane, and a little later, their first child was born in their family. In just a few years, five children were born, whom Gauguin recklessly abandoned at the age of 35, as he decided to devote his life entirely to art.
Now the artist's canvases are extremely popular with both collectors and ordinary connoisseurs. He brought a certain novelty to art, abandoning the traditional principles of naturalism in favor of abstraction and symbols. Paul Gauguin created each painting in his own way, not paying attention to the canons and rules.
His canvases are imbued with a sense of mystery, rich colors attract the eye again and again. In addition to painting, the artist was engaged in woodcuts, created several pottery works, wrote his own autobiography and left behind many amazing paintings. After his death, Somerset Maugham wrote his version of the creator's biography, which became extremely popular.
Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin (June 7, 1848 - May 8, 1903) was a French painter, ceramic sculptor and graphic artist. Along with Cezanne and Van Gogh, he was the largest representative of post-impressionism. In the early 1870s, he began painting as an amateur. The early period of creativity is associated with impressionism. From 1880 he participated in exhibitions of the Impressionists. Since 1883 he has been a professional artist. Gauguin's works were not in demand, the artist was poor. Currently (as of 09.2015) Gauguin's "When the Wedding" contests the title of the most expensive painting sold.
Paul Gauguin was born in Paris on June 7, 1848. His father, Clovis Gauguin (1814-1849), was a journalist in the political chronicle section of Thiers and Armand Mare's Nacional, obsessed with radical republican ideas; mother, Alina Maria (1825-1867), was from Peru from a wealthy family. Her mother was the famous Flora Tristan (1803-1844), who shared the ideas of utopian socialism and published the autobiographical book Wanderings of a Pariah in 1838.
In 1849, after a failed anti-monarchist coup, Clovis, not feeling safe in his homeland, decided to leave France. Together with his family, he embarked on a ship bound for Peru, where he intended to settle in the family of his wife Alina and open his own magazine. These plans were not destined to come true. On the way to South America, Clovis died of a heart attack.
Thus, until the age of seven, Paul lived in Peru and was brought up in his mother's family. Childhood impressions, exotic nature, bright national costumes, a carefree life in his uncle's estate in Lima remained in his memory for the rest of his life, affecting his irrepressible thirst for travel, craving for the tropics.
In 1855, when Paul was 7 years old, he returned to France with his mother to receive an inheritance from his paternal uncle, and settled in Orleans with his grandfather. Gauguin quickly learns French and begins to excel in education. In 1861, Alina opens a sewing workshop in Paris, and her son is preparing to enter the Nautical School. But he does not stand the competition and in December 1865 is hired to sail as a "cadet", or a pilot's apprentice. Until 1871, he will be almost continuously sailing all over the world: in South America, in the Mediterranean, in the northern seas. While in India, he learns of the death of his mother, who, in her will, recommends that he "make a career, as he is completely unable to win the favor of family friends and may soon find himself very lonely." However, having arrived in Paris in 1872, he receives the support of his mother's friend Gustave Arosa, a stock trader, photographer and collector of modern art, whom he has known since childhood. Thanks to his recommendations, Gauguin gets a position as a stockbroker.
In 1873, Gauguin marries a young Danish woman, Matte-Sophie Gad, a member of the Arosa family. Gauguin also becomes a father: Emil is born in 1874, Alina in 1877, Clovis in 1879, Jean-Rene in 1881 and Paul in 1883. In the next ten years, Gauguin's position in society was strengthened. His family occupies more and more comfortable apartments, where special attention is paid to the artist's studio. Gauguin, like his guardian Arosa, "collects" paintings, especially the Impressionists, and paints himself.
From 1873-1874, his first landscapes appear, one of them will be exhibited at the Salon of 1876. Gauguin met the Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro before 1874, but their friendship began in 1878. Gauguin has been invited to participate in Impressionist exhibitions since the beginning of 1879: the collector is gradually being taken seriously as an artist. He spends the summer of 1879 with Pissarro in Pontoise, where he paints gardens and rural landscapes, similar to those of the “maitre”, as well as everything that he will write until 1885. Pissarro introduces Gauguin to Edgar Degas, who will always support Gauguin, buying his paintings and urging Durand-Ruel, an Impressionist art dealer, to do so. Degas will become the owner of about 10 paintings by Gauguin, including "Beautiful Angela", "Woman with a Mango Fruit", or "Hina Tefatou"
In 1884, Gauguin moved with his family to Copenhagen, where he continued to work as a broker. However, after painting full time, Paul left his wife and five children in Denmark and returned to Paris in 1885.
In 1886-1890, Gauguin spends almost all his time in Pont-Aven (Brittany), where he communicates with a group of artists close to Symbolism. The first time the artist went there in 1886, wanting to take a break from Paris and save some money: life there was noticeably cheaper.
The island of Martinique, where Gauguin left in 1887 with the artist Laval, whom he met in Brittany, helped to make an evolution in the master's work, making Japanese influences noticeable in his works.
In 1887-1888 he visited Panama, where he observed the construction of the Panama Canal. In 1888 he lived for some time with Van Gogh in Arles and worked with him. The stay ended in a quarrel connected with one of Van Gogh's first bouts of insanity.
Experiencing since childhood, spent in Peru (in the mother’s homeland), a craving for exotic places and considering civilization a “disease”, Gauguin, eager to “merge with nature”, in 1891 leaves for Tahiti, where he lived in Papeete and where in 1892 he writes as many as 80 paintings. After a short (1893-1895) return to France, due to illness and lack of funds, he leaves forever for Oceania - first to Tahiti, and since 1901 to the island of Hiva-Oa (Marquesas Islands), where he marries a young Tahitian woman and works in full force: writes landscapes, stories, works as a journalist. On this island he dies. Despite illness (including leprosy), poverty and depression, which led him to attempt suicide, Gauguin wrote his best works there. Observation of the real life and way of life of the peoples of Oceania are intertwined in them with local myths.
Glory came to the artist after his death, when in 1906 227 of his works were exhibited in Paris. The influence of Gauguin's work on the art of the 20th century is undeniable.
Gauguin's life formed the basis of Somerset Maugham's novel The Moon and the Penny. It describes a simple English broker, Charles Strickland, who left his family, work and home in order to paint.
A crater on Mercury is named after Gauguin.
The final years of Gauguin's life were made into a film starring Donald Sutherland, The Wolf on the Threshold (1986). There is also a film with Kiefer Sutherland - Paradise Found (2003).
“No one wants my paintings because they are not like other artists…
A strange, insane public that demands the greatest possible originality from the painter - and at the same time does not accept him if his works do not resemble the works of others! The works of Gauguin never resembled others. Because he invented his art all his life.
Today he is called one of the most expensive artists in the world. In 2015, his painting “When is the wedding?” was bought for $300 million. If the impoverished poster-poster Paul Gauguin had known about this in the mid-1880s, he would have laughed. His fate did not portend either fame, or wealth, or worldwide recognition.
wanderer
It seems that Paul Gauguin was destined to wander the world. His grandmother Flora Tristan left France for Latin America. He himself was born in Paris in 1848, but rather quickly his family went to relatives in Peru. On the way, during this move, my father died. At the age of 17, Paul was hired on a merchant ship and saw Chile and Brazil ... What attracted him? The desire to be on the road all the time, not to sit still. Or maybe they were frightened by the gray everyday life in French Orleans, where the family ended up after returning from Peru. Sometimes it seems that Gauguin spent half his life on the road.
stock broker
The epic with the merchant fleet cost Paul the favor of his mother. But the guardian, family friend Gustave Aroz, helped the young man and got him a job at the stock exchange. Prosperous years began, Gauguin married the Danish Mette Gad, he had five children, he was satisfied with both life and his hobby. On Sundays, when he had free time, he painted.
At first it was just a pleasant hobby. And then, through the mediation of the same Aros, he met the Impressionists, realized how close their ideas were to him, took part in exhibitions ... And gradually he felt that painting was his real vocation.
in poverty
Metta did not understand and did not accept the refusal to work on the stock exchange and the decision to devote herself to art. She decided to live in her native Copenhagen with all the children, except for the youngest, who stayed with his father. They ended up in Paris in real poverty: the exhibitions were not fed, the paintings were not sold, and sometimes they had to be left to innkeepers in payment for hospitality. And the future most expensive artist in the world earned by posting posters on the Parisian streets.
Impressionism, which Gauguin followed, is in crisis, and, immersed in creative searches, Paul leaves for Brittany. Again on the road, again restless, but he is painfully looking for a new creative manner. This is how synthetism is born - a simplified style of writing, bright colors, decorativeness, the desire to combine pictures of the real world and one's own idea-impression of them. Those features by which we unmistakably recognize the master's hand.
Heaven on earth. What was he looking for on the island?
In the late 1880s and early 1890s, Gauguin again traveled a lot. They say that he was looking for Paradise on Earth, so he visited Martinique, the Marquesas Islands, and Tahiti. It is with Tahiti that the name of the artist is associated today.
“He rebelled against God, like an angel of darkness, and the Lord overthrew him, like Satanail, - the artist Gauguin ended his days in drunkenness and debauchery, suffering from a shameful disease ...”,- the head of the local Catholic mission spoke about him not too flattering. Well, Gauguin really was not a model of morality: he did not go to church, lived with a minor mistress, drank himself and soldered the natives, and at the end of his life he fell ill with syphilis ... And he worked: during his life in Tahiti, he painted a total of about 100 paintings. But there was no recognition, and therefore no money.
What was he looking for on the island? Most likely, the original native beauty. But it no longer existed: European settlers gradually killed local traditions, eradicated customs. However, the bright colors of the island and the continuing naturalness of life did not let go of the artist.
The audience laughed at his paintings
Gauguin tried to return to Paris, visited there on short trips. He held exhibitions, but the public laughed at his paintings, considering them similar to illustrations from children's books. Living in Tahiti or the Marquesas Islands was easier - cheaper, so with the help of friends, he again returned to his never found earthly paradise.
And he wrote less and less. Although he remained a prominent figure. Distinguished in his youth with great physical strength, bending horseshoes, working as a digger, Gauguin always attracted attention. In Tahiti, he clashed with local officials, published a newspaper with a circulation of 20 copies, incited local residents not to send their children to a Catholic school ... And he was not going to return to Paris, where a wave of interest in his paintings and his popularity was already beginning to grow. But he didn't know about it.
Gauguin died in 1903. The artist's friends did not rule out that it was murder or suicide: there was a syringe with morphine near the body. He was buried, the property was sold under the hammer, and part of it was simply thrown away. The local gendarmes did not yet know that Europe was starting to go crazy over his canvases...
Gauguin's carved walking sticks are now in the New York Museum. The beams of the hut, which the artist covered with not quite decent carvings, were transported to Boston. Each copy of the newspaper published by Gauguin is worth its weight in gold.
