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
Nature has mysterious infinities and imaginative power. It is always varying the productions it offers to us. The artist himself is one of nature's means.
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.
A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes that he has got the biggest piece.
Do you know what will soon be the ultimate in truth? - photography, once it begins to reproduce colors, and that won't be long in coming. And yet you want an intelligent man to sweat for months so as to give the illusion he can do something as well as an ingenious little machine can!
Civilization is paralysis.
No one wants my painting because it is different from other people's peculiar, crazy public that demands the greatest possible degree of originality on the painter's part and yet won't accept him unless his work resembles that of the others!
A time will come when people will think I am a myth, or rather something the newspapers have made up.
In order to produce something new, you have to return to the original source, to the childhood of mankind.
I must confess that I too am a woman and that I am always prepared to applaud a woman who is more daring than I, and is equal to a man in fighting for freedom of behavior.
Today one can dare anything, and, furthermore, nobody is surprised.
It was so simple to paint things as I saw them; to put without special calculation a red close to a blue.
Beware of luxury! Beware of acquiring the taste and need for it, under the pretext of providing for the morrow...
Perhaps I have no talent, but all vanity aside - I do not believe that anyone makes an artistic attempt, no matter how small, without having a little - or there are many fools.
Silence! I am learning to know the silence of a Tahitian night.