Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguinwas a French post-Impressionist artist. Underappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of color and synthetist style that were distinctly different from Impressionism. His work was influential to the French avant-garde and many modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Gauguin's art became popular after his death, partially from the efforts of art dealer Ambroise Vollard, who organized exhibitions of his work late in his career, as well as...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth7 June 1848
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
Paul Gauguin quotes about
Poor artist! You gave away part of your soul when you painted the picture which you are now trying to dispose of.
Go on working, freely and furiously, and you will make progress.
Let everything about you breathe the calm and peace of the soul.
And here in my isolation I can grow stronger. Poetry seems to come of itself, without effort, and I need only let myself dream a little while painting to suggest it.
Take care not to step on the foot of a learned idiot. His bite is incurable.
What still concerns me the most is: am I on the right track, am I making progress, am I making mistakes in art?
I am a great artist and I know it. It's because of what I am that I have endured so much suffering, so as to pursue my vocation, otherwise I would consider myself a rogue - which is what many people think I am, for that matter.
By the combination of lines and colors, under the pretext of some motif taken from nature, I create symphonies and harmonies that represent nothing absolutely real in the ordinary sense of the word but are intended to give rise to thoughts as music does.
It is useless to advise solitude for everyone; one must be strong enough to endure it and to work alone.
It is well for young men to have a model, but let them draw the curtain over it while they are painting.
Color which, like music, is a matter of vibrations, reaches what is most general and therefore most indefinable in nature: its inner power.
for Christ's sake, were the mountains blue, then chuck on some blue and don't go telling me that it was a blue a bit like this or like that, it was blue wasn't it? Good - make them blue and that's enough!
We never really know what stupidity is until we have experimented on ourselves.
I am leaving in order to have peace and quiet. To be rid of the influence of civilization. I only want to do simple, very simple art and to be able to do that, I have to immerse myself in virgin nature, see no one but savages, live their life, with no other thought in my mind but to render, the way a child would, the concepts formed in my brain and to do this with the aid of nothing but the primitive means of art, the only means that are good and true.