Artist Description- Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was born in Paris, France in 1848. His father was a French journalist. When Gauguin was three, he and his parents moved to Lima, Peru. Unfortunately, his father passed away during the trip and him and his mother remained there for four years. He eventually returned back to Paris where he became a stockbroker for twelve years. His main hobby was painting and by 1876, his artwork was accepted in a salon. By 1883, he gave up his career as a broker and decided to focus all his time on painting. Within this time period, two of his main paintings were Yellow Christ and Vision After the Sermon/Jacob Wrestling with the Angel. Peasents played a big part in Gauguin's paintings. They were depicted a lot in his paintings. Eventually, he moved to Tahiti where he began to appreciate warm colors and used his environment greatly within his paintings. He is regarded as a highly influencial painter in modern art. He used a lot of techniques known today as surrealist painting. Primitivism was an art movement of late 19th century painting andsculpture; characterized by exaggerated body proportions, animal totems,geometric designs and stark contrasts. The first artist to systematically use these effects and achieve broad public success was Paul Gauguin.


The Yellow Christ:
Under the influence of folk art and Japanese prints, Gauguin evolvedtowards Cloisonnism, a style given its name by the critic ÉdouardDujardin in response to Emile Bernard's method of painting with flatareas of color and bold outlines, which reminded Dujardin of theMedieval cloisonné enamelling technique. Gauguin was very appreciativeof Bernard's art and of his daring with the employment of a style whichsuited Gauguin in his quest to express the essence of the objects in hisart.In The Yellow Christ (1889), often cited as a quintessential Cloisonnistwork, the image was reduced to areas of pure colour separated by heavyblack outlines. In such works Gauguin paid little attention to classicalperspective and boldly eliminated subtle gradations of colour, therebydispensing with the two most characteristic principles ofpost-Renaissance painting. His painting later evolved towards Synthetismin which neither form nor colour predominate but each has an equal role.


The Breton Girls

In 1883 he decided to devote himself full-time to his art. He quit his
job and found himself living on his own. His wife and children were
confused by Gauguin's all-consuming passion for art, and they moved to
Denmark. Though they remained apart, Gauguin corresponded with his wife
throughout his life; his letters give us a personal look into the
thoughts and motivations behind his art.

Gauguin was drawn to "primitive", mythic, and mysterious subject matter.
His unique style developed during trips to Brittany, a rugged land in
northwest France. There he hoped to tap the expressive potential of an
unspoiled society. He made bold paintings of the Breton people in native
dress, work that influenced a group of painters who became Gauguin's
devoted followers.

The Vision of the Sermon:

Gauguin's work was concerned with inner rather than external truth. He studied Japanese prints and began to incorporate their style. He began to use bold, flat areas of solid color to depict his figures. In this painting, "the figures are distributed unconventually, cut off and framing the canvas edge at the left and in the foreground." There is no identifiable source of light within this photo. This technique is similiar to Fauvism.