Writing To An Old Friend Who Just Had A Baby

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin

( Paris, June 7 of 1848 - Atuona , Marquesas Islands , May 9 of 1903) was a painter Postimpressionist . Team leader of the Pont-Aven School of and inspired the Nabis, his work is considered among the most important of the painters French of nineteenth century .

His experiments on color and body of work influenced the evolution of painting, especially on the Fauvism, a movement that develops between 1898 and 1908.

In family liberal, was the son of Clovis Gauguin, a journalist anti-monarchist, and Aline Marie Chazal. She was a descendant of landowners English of South America and viceroy of Peru. The socialist feminist Flora Tristan Paul Gauguin's grandmother was his mother's side.

When Paul had only one year, the family had to flee to America after blow State of Napoleon III in 1851. During the trip his father died and his mother had to rely on the hospitality of his relatives in Lima ( Peru). In this city he spent his early childhood years.

In 1855 return France To Orleans and installed in the house of an uncle of Paul, Isidore. Gauguin studied in Orleans between 1859 and 1865. Gauguin embarks on merchant still very young, and then the French Navy in serving on board the corvette Jerôme Napoléon.

On his return to France in 1870, became an agent of change for the company Bertin in Paris Bourse , having considerable success in their business. Led a bourgeois life and sit next to his wife, Danish Mette-Sophie Gad, and their five children: Emile , Aline , Clovis, Jean-René and Paul Rollo.

His guardian, Gustave Arosa, businessman and lover of art, introduced Gauguin among Impressionists. In 1874 , the painter known Camille Pissarro and first visited an exhibition of paintings impressionist. Like his tutor, art lovers, which leads him to take painting classes and make their first attempts to create in this field. He exhibited his works with the Impressionists in 1876, 1880 , 1881, 1882 and 1886 and brings together a personal collection work Manet, Cézanne, Monet and the aforementioned Pissarro.

In 1882, quit his job in Bag (now collapsed) to devote himself to his new passion, the painting. Since this is not enough to survive, he moved to live with his wife and children to the family of this in Copenhagen. Relations with her in-laws not good and their businesses are not going well. Decides to return to Paris in 1885 to devote himself exclusively to painting, but unable to ensure the subsistence of his family, leaves his wife and children in Denmark.

Gauguin moved to Rouen in Normandy, where he has installed Pissarro but 1887 decides to go with his friend Charles Laval Panama, in the restored Republic of Colombia. ^a

Gauguin arrived at the Isthmus of Panama, in April 1887, Taboga Island, which said in a letter "is almost uninhabited and very fertile. I wear my colors and my brushes and I soak in them away from all human beings. "Then it would not be as eloquent on the environment in Panama, as he tells his wife, Mette-Sophie, from City of Panama - where his brother Colombia (husband of his sister Maria Gauguin Tristan) had invited him with promises of steady work -.

In the following letter to Mette-Sophie will tell her misfortune occurred in the district of San Felipe, where he was taken prisoner by the police, the crime of urinating in a street. ² For a time the drilling work in the channel, as worker Panama Canal Company , but the weather and disease I prostrate tropical soon. Just recovered from dysentery and malaria or yellow fever, continues the journey on the island Martinique in 1888.

This trip to the Caribbean, which would be fundamental to his artistic future, since he was the sensuality of color and interest in nature primitive able to emphasize human relations, Gauguin returned to Europe sick and afflicted. There is the hospitality of Theo Van Gogh , who also will present his paintings at his own gallery.

But apart this trip, including 1886 and 1891, living mainly in Britain where it becomes the center of a group of experimental painters known as the School of Pont-Aven , where he had as disciples Émile Bernard , Paul Sérusier , Seguin and Chmaillard that constitute the so-called symbolism (Group of Nabis .) His style of painting began to transform from near the Impressionism up much more personal style.

Under the influence of one of his young disciples, Emile Bernard, his style evolved to what has been called synthetism , a way to paint more natural and synthetic. Find inspiration in the indigenous art in the windows medieval and prints Japanese.

latter are discovered thanks to Dutch Vincent Van Gogh in 1888 within two months in which they live together (between October and December) Arles, in southern France , dedicated both to paint. Gauguin had met Vincent and Theo Van Gogh in Paris in 1886, and Gauguin had been impressed by the expression Vincent. Work together and paint the series of views of Alyscamps . But living together is very difficult, both have a very temperamental, and Gauguin Vincent tires. Van Gogh later suicide attempt. Their coexistence deteriorates and ends with the famous episode of the severed ear of Van Gogh. It is known that Van Gogh had emotional problems and cut off his ear, but not so sure it was because of Gauguin. Anecdote that may be real or a myth. (Information from wikipedia)

Antonio Sánchez-Gil http://arteycartelera.es