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Paul Gauguin was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, whose work has been associated with the Post-Impressionist and Symbolist movements. He was also a practitioner of wood-engraving and woodcuts as art forms. While only moderately successful during his lifetime, Gauguin has since been recognized for his experimental use of color and Synthetist style that were distinct from Impressionism. Gauguin was the first artist to systematically use the effects of Primitivism and achieve broad public success with it. The European cultural elite were fascinated, intrigued, and educated by the newness, wildness, and the stark power embodied in the art of those faraway places. Like Pablo Picasso in the early days of the 20th century, Gauguin was inspired and motivated by the raw power and simplicity of the so-called Primitive Art of those foreign cultures. “Don’t copy nature too literally. Art is an abstraction. Derive it from nature as you dream in nature’s presence, and think more about the act of creation than the outcome” – Paul Gauguin |
