Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a French post-impressionist artist who was born on the 7^th of June 1848 and died on the 8^th of May and was an extremely important figure in the Symbolist movement. He was a painter, print maker, sculptor, ceramist and writer. Gauguin began painting at the age of 27 but wasn’t appreciated for his works until after his death. He was later recognized for his experimental use of colour and influenced many modern artists including Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. He also influenced the use of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms. Gauguin was a rather poor man, his wife earning the most money from her teaching. In the eyes of his family he was seen as a monster not to be earning money and he began to get fed up of it all, so he abandoned his family and moved to Brittany in Paris where he lived on credit. He liked the wildness and primitiveness of this new place and his works were much loved by the people in Brittany, especially loved by the Americans who lived there. Gauguin saw hope for the future so he decided now free from family problems, he would devote himself entirely to art. In 1890 he moved to the island of Tahiti where he began creating works of a supposed paradise. Many of his works were based around a lie, a made up paradise where the woman of the island roamed around naked and were sexually available for the men though, in his painting you don’t see any men which I believe this was another lie to make people jealous and believe that he is the only man on an island filled with beautiful women. A woodcut which I looked by Gauguin was the "Woman under a tree" made between 1895 and 1903. In my opinion, I don’t like this piece. I think my opinion is merely based on his subject matter. The fact of making up everything in his works is pretty remarkable but the actual subject doesn’t go down well with many people.