Successful and wealthy, Gauguin becomes interested in painting. He goes to painting courses and has deep conversations about art. However, his pictures are disliked and ridiculed.
Paul Gauguin was born in Paris in 1848, the son of a journalist. The Gauguin family moves to Peru because of the articles in his father's newspaper criticizing Napoleon. Father dies on the way. Little Gauguin spends his days in Peru until he starts staying at a boarding school in Paris at the age of six.
At the age of 16, he enters the merchant navy and starts to work as an officer on ships. While traveling, he receives the news of his mother's death. His mother appointed his close friend, Gustave Arosa, as the guardian of his children. Arosa gets Gauguin a job at a good stock company. Successful and wealthy, Gauguin becomes interested in painting, influenced by Arosa, who is a good collector of paintings. He goes to painting courses and has deep conversations about art. One of his paintings is accepted to the 1876 Paris Salon Exhibition. However, his pictures are disliked and ridiculed.
In 1876, he met Pissarro, the most important name of the Impressionists. Pissarro influenced many artists. He introduces and endears Gauguin the most plein air technique, which is his own technique. The period he spent with Gauguin in Pontaiose caused the artist to be influenced by himself. Gauguin, who produced impressionist paintings under the influence of Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro during this period, despite all the negative criticisms and the objections of his wife (Mette-Sophie Gad), his passion for painting takes precedence. In 1883, at the age of 35, he quit his job completely and devotes all his time to painting. When her husband cannot take care of himself and his five children, his wife returns to her family with her children.
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct from Impressionism. Toward the end of his life, he spent ten years in French Polynesia. The paintings from this time depict people or landscapes from that region.
Gauguin made a trip he had planned for months in 1886 in order to get away from the Paris artists who did not accept him among them. He goes to Britain. The signals of the Tahitian landscapes that he will paint in the following years are seen in the paintings he drew here. The use of brushstrokes and colors takes a distinctive form, quite different from his earlier works.
The most important work that Gauguin realized in Pont-Aven, where he spent about six months, is Breton Peasant Women. This 1886 painting contains decorative elements. The white hats and collars and the skirts, which are illustrated in different patterns, were made in a decorative style in the synthetism style that Gauguin pioneered together with Emile Bernard. The distinctive outline used on skirts and collars was replaced by contours over time, laying the foundations of Art Nouveau.
In 1887, he went to Panama and then to Martinique Island. His paintings here bring about his departure from impressionism. The vibrant colors and enthusiasm for his paintings show how happy Gauguin was here. However, he is forced to return to Paris due to financial problems and illness.
Gauguin went to Arles in 1888 and worked with Van Gogh for about 2 months for a while, but left here when the conflicts between the two artists reached the top. During the time the two painters spent together, it is seen that the styles of the artists who painted the most plein air (open air) approached each other. Topics are chosen from local landscapes and the lives of farmers. The effect of syntheticism reappears in Gauguin's paintings.
Hamburg-based art historian Rita Wildegans, in her statement to Spiegel magazine, says that in her memoirs written by Paul Gauguin, it is implied that, contrary to popular belief, it was Van Gogh who cut off Van Gogh's ear. According to the Wildegans theory, during the 8 weeks that they shared a house in Arles, Van Gogh, and Gauguin drank absinthe every day, causing uncontrollable aggression and memory loss, and were not sober even when painting.
In 1891 he left France for Tahiti. He is dissatisfied with the civilization of Papeete, the capital of Tahiti, and moves to Mataiea. During his stay here, he had many girlfriends from his young girls. Teha'amana, one of these girls, has an important place in the painter's life. Teha'amana is 13 when the painter is 43 years old. He tells about his experiences in Tahiti and how he met this mixed-race girl in his book Noa Noa.
He leaves Tahiti in 1893 and returns to Paris. His first exhibition creates a big event. The paintings are found to be crude and primitive. In this period, the inheritance from his family also relieves him financially. The workshop opens. He starts living with a young girl named Annah. Inappropriate behavior causes the reaction of the environment. Therefore, he flees to Tahiti again in 1895. He is in poor health and has little money. His ankle fracture, alcohol addiction, and syphilis are causing him unbearable pain. He is frequently hospitalized but unable to pay the bills. Moreover, the locals do not pay attention to him as before, the death of his favorite daughter Aline brings him down. He attempts suicide but fails. With a final effort, "Where Do We Come From" dated 1898, which is perhaps the best picture of the process of human life. Kumiss? Where are we going?" makes a picture. In a letter he wrote to his friend Charles Morice in 1901 for this painting, he says: “I wanted to die. In this desperation, I transferred this subject to a piece of sack that came to my hand in one fell swoop. I couldn't afford to sign the picture. I drank arsenic but still didn't die. My suffering only increased…”
When his paintings began to attract attention from collectors, a painting dealer named Vollard undertakes to pay Gauguin a certain amount of money to make his paintings. When his financial problems were over, he left his second family in Tahiti and set out for the Marquesas Islands in 1901 in pursuit of new excitements. The paintings he made here are more serene and stagnant. Despite his illness and not getting along well with the administration, he continues to paint, sculpt and write. He died in 1903 as a result of a heart attack.