Gauguin, (Eugène-Henri-) Paul
Gauguin, (Eugène-Henri-) Paul (b. June 7, 1848, Paris,
Fr.--d. May 8, 1903, Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia), one
of the leading French painters of the Postimpressionist period, whose
development of a conceptual method of representation was a decisive step for 20th-century
art. After spending a short period with Vincent van Gogh in Arles (1888),
Gauguin increasingly abandoned imitative art for expressiveness through colour.
From 1891 he lived and worked in Tahiti and elsewhere in the South Pacific. His
masterpieces include the early Vision After the Sermon (1888) and Where
Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897-98).
Although
his main achievements were to lie elsewhere, Gauguin was, to use a fanciful
metaphor, nursed in the bosom of Impressionism. His attitudes to art were
deeply influenced by his experience of its first exhibition, and he himself
participated in those of 1880, 1881 and 1882. The son of a French journalist
and a Peruvian Creole, whose mother had been a writer and a follower of Saint-Simon,
he was brought up in Lima, joined the merchant navy in 1865, and in 1872 began
a successful career as a stockbroker in Paris.
In
1874 he saw the first Impressionist exhibition, which completely entranced him
and confirmed his desire to become a painter. He spent some 17,000 francs on
works by Manet, Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, Renoir and Guillaumin. Pissarro took a
special interest in his attempts at painting, emphasizing that he should `look
for the nature that suits your temperament', and in 1876 Gauguin had a
landscape in the style of Pissarro accepted at the Salon. In the meantime
Pissarro had introduced him to Cézanne, for whose works he conceived a
great respect---so much so that the older man began to fear that he would steal
his `sensations'. All three worked together for some time at Pontoise, where
Pissarro and Gauguin drew pencil sketches of each other (Cabinet des Dessins,
Louvre).
In
1883-84 the bank that employed him got into difficulties and Gauguin was able
to paint every day. He settled for a while in Rouen, partly because Paris was
too expensive for a man with five children, partly because he thought it would
be full of wealthy patrons who might buy his works. Rouen proved a
disappointment, and he joined his wife Mette and children, who had gone back to
Denmark, where she had been born. His experience of Denmark was not a happy one
and, having returned to Paris, he went to paint in Pont-Aven, a well-known
resort for artists.
Here,
he stopped working exclusively out-of-doors, as Pissarro had taught him, and
generally began to adopt a more independent line. His meeting with van Gogh,
the influence of Seurat, the doctrines of Signac, and a rediscovery of the
merits of Degas--especially in his pastels--all combined with his own streak of
megalomania to produce a style that had little in common with the thoughtful
lyricism of the work of his erstwhile mentor Pissarro. Monet confessed to a
liking of his Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1888; National
Gallery of Scotland), which he saw at the exhibition Gauguin organized in 1891
to finance his projected excursion to places where he could live on `ecstasy,
calmness and art'; the proceeds amounted to 10,0000 francs, some of it coming
from Degas, who bought several paintings. There were still evident in these new
works traces of pure Impressionism, and of the very clear influence of
Cézanne (as in the Portrait of Marie Lagadu, 1890; Art
Institute of Chicago)--a fact pointed up by a Cézanne still life owned
by Gauguin which is shown behind her--but basically this period marked the
parting of the ways between Gauguin and Impressionism.
Gauguin's
art has all the appearance of a flight from civilisation, of a search for new
ways of life, more primitive, more real and more sincere. His break away from a
solid middle-class world, abandoning family, children and job, his refusal to
accept easy glory and easy gain are the best-known aspects of Gauguin's
fascinating life and personality. This picture, also known as Two women
on the beach, was painted in 1891, shortly after Gauguin's arrival in
Tahiti. During his first stay there (he was to leave in 1893, only to return in
1895 and remain until his death), Gauguin discovered primitive art, with its
flat forms and the violent colors belonging to an untamed nature. And then,
with absolute sincerity, he transferred them onto canvas.
Список
литературы
Для подготовки данной работы
были использованы материалы с сайта http://www.ibiblio.org/louvre/paint/