\paperw4695 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 French painter and sculptor\par
He spent his early childhood at Lima, in Peru. Back in France, he studied in OrlΘans and Paris and in
1865 enrolled as a cadet in the navy. Returning to Paris after five years at sea, he took a job as a stockbroker and began to paint and sculpt in his spare time. He came into contact with the Impressionist painters, making friends with Camille Pissarro
and exhibiting with the group between 1879 and 1886. In 1883 he gave up his job to devote all his time to painting. The following years were marked by severe economic hardship which led to him separating from his family and leaving Paris. In 1885 he went
to Pont-Aven for the first time, where he met Emile Bernard and Laval. In 1887 he accompanied the latter to Martinique. The following year he was back in Pont-Aven and made a visit to Arles, where his friendship with Vincent van Gogh was brought to a dr
amatic end. In these years, crucial for the evolution of his approach to art, Gauguin abandoned Impressionism and developed a new non-naturalistic and Symbolist style, Synthetism. The work that marked the establishment of this new style was the \i Vision
after the Sermon\i0 , painted in 1888 (Edinburgh, National Gallery). A fundamental role in the development of Synthetism was played by the revival of primitive Breton art, the study of Japanese prints, and the investigation of the symbolic value of colo
r carried out by Gauguin and his friends Bernard and Anquetin. The unprecedented formal solutions worked out by Gauguin were to have a decisive influence on subsequent developments in Symbolism, of which the artist is considered one of the founders.
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During the period he spent in Brittany, first at Pont-Aven and then from 1890 on at Le Pouldu, the artist portrayed local people (\i At the CafΘ. Madame Ginoux\i0 , 1888, Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts; \i La belle angΦle\i0 , 1889, Paris, MusΘe dÆ
Orsay) and painted a series of pictures of a distinctly mystical character (\i Yellow Christ\i0 , 1889, Buffalo, New York, Albright-Knox Art Gallery). Over the same period, Gauguin experimented with other techniques, such as woodcarving, which he used to
re-create forms typical of primitive art (\i You are Mysterious\i0 , Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay). The so-called ôschool of Pont-Avenö formed around Gauguin in Brittany and included Bernard, SΘguin, and SΘrusier, among others.\par
After a short stay in Paris,
when he played a prominent role at literary meetings in the CafΘ Voltaire, the artist set off for Tahiti in 1891, in search of a pure and uncorrupted civilization. Enchanted by the beauty of the place and its people, he undertook an almost ethnological
study of the natives and their customs, portraying the Polynesians in their everyday activities and recording his impressions in a number of journals (\i The Ancient Maori Cult\i0 , \i Noa Noa\i0 ). Among the more celebrated works from his first stay in
Tahiti, it is worth mentioning \i Women on the Beach\i0 (1891, Paris, MusΘe dÆOrsay), \i Te matete\i0 (Basel, Kunstmuseum), and \i Hail Mary \i0 (\i La Orana Maria\i0 , New York, Metropolitan Museum). Returning to Paris in 1893, he went through a perio
d of deep crisis, marked by a growing rejection of Western civilization. During this time he painted a number of pictures inspired by his Tahitian experience (\i Mahana no Atua\i0 , Chicago, Art Institute) and a series of woodcarvings that have the magic
al fascination of the Polynesian idols. Back in Tahiti in 1895 and more and more alone, in debt, and depressed, he painted vast allegories of human destiny, such as \i Where do we come from, what are we, where are we going?\i0 (1897, Boston, Museum of F
ine Arts), considered the artistÆs pictorial testament. The women of Tahiti remained one of his favorite subjects (\i Rupe Rupe\i0 , 1899, Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts; \i Two Tahitian Women\i0 , 1899 and \i Breasts with Red Flowers\i0 , both in N
