Gauguin by Cynthia Brown

Paul Gauguin was born in 1848 to Clovis and Aline Gauguin. He had never known the security of family life or a stable home, even from his earlist years, for his father, Clovis Gauguin, a republican journalist, died on board ship while taking his young family into political exile in South America. Paul Gauguin was just two when they reached Peru and he spent four years there, with his mother and sister, under the protection of distant relatives. By the time he was seven he and his family were living back in France under the wing of a bachelor uncle.
Gauguin attended schools in Orle'ans, boarding at a Jesuit seminary until he was fourteen, and then a pre-naval college in Paris. Paul Gauguin married Mette Gad in 1873. Gauguin was twenty five, Mette Gad was twenty three. Paul Gauguin named two of his children after his parents. Aline, his only and much-loved daughter, born 1877, and Clovis his second son born in 1879, his eldest son was Emil. 

Gauguin had the necessary skills to succeed on the stockmarket, he rose quickly in the various finance firms that employed him. Gauguin attended evening life classes at the Acade'mie Colarossi. Between 1879 and 1882 it must have been a matter of considerable anxiety for Gauguin that his work should earn the acceptance and approval of other members of the Impressionist group. It was at the 1880 fifth Impressionist exhibition that Gauguin made his real public de'but as a painter.Gauguin painted Les Pommiers en fleus Jardin rue Carcel in 1881. Gauguin made his portrait bust of Mette Gauguin in 1879. He made his bust of Clovis Gauguin in 1881. 

Gauguin painted his daughter Aline asleep, La Petite re've, in 1881. Gauguin earnings on the stockmarket dwindled sharply since the financial crisis of 1882, coinciding with the crash of the Union Fede'rale bank. Gauguin finally decided to "take the bull by the horns" as he put it, and commit himself wholeheartedly to an artistic career. His wife, he ruefully acknowledged, could not cope with financial hardship. Two years before, they had been living in considerable style, with servants, a comfortable house and garden in the rue Carcel, as recorded in several of his Vaugirard paintings. Now they needed to find cheaper accommodation out of Paris. 

In 1883 Gauguin and Mette along with four children with one on the way moved to Rouen. After less than a year of a cramped and uncomfortable existence in Rouen, where the bourgeois buyers turned out to be more elusive than Gauguin had predicted. Mette removed herself and two of the children to Copenhagen. Emile, the eldest, had already been sent there to receive the benefit of a Danish education. Gauguin shamefacedly followed a month or so later with the two others. In 1885 Gauguin and Mette embarked on separate lives they remained remarkably close. Taunts led to misunderstandings and ensuing bitterness over money, and it was these that finally led Mette to break off communications in 1894. Gauguin painted, Nature Morte au profilde laval in 1886. From 1883 to 1886 Gauguin scarcely devoted more time to his art than he had done previously when in full-time employment. Gauguin painted Vaches au repos 1885. Gauguin most important 1886 Bretonnes, was painted during the winter, as was the large Deux baigneuses of 1887. Gauguin finances still in a critical state when he returned from Brittany, and a month in hospital, caused by an acute, attack of angina, left him completely out of pocket despondent and bitter at the start of 1887. Gauguin and Charles Laval joined a ship bound for America in April of 1887, planning to hole up on the Pacific and there renew his physical strength. 

Gauguin's encounter with Theo and Vincent Van Gogh was in late 1887. Gauguin painted La Ronde despetites Bretonnes in June of 1888. Gauguin accepted an invitation to go to Arles from the Van Gogh's. Gauguin found the women of Arles more sophisticated, Gauguin and Van Gogh's break came on 23 December when after a drunken argument, in an inflamed state, Vincent lunged at Gauguin with a razor. 

Gauguin fled and discovered the next morning that in remorse Vincent had turned the blade in himself, slicing off a part of his ear. Gauguin returned to Paris. Gauguin painted La Moisson au bord de la mer in 1890. Octave Mirbeau did much to publicize Gauguin's forthcoming sale boost his reputation. On April first 1891 Gauguin sailed to Tahiti. Tahiti was not all Gauguin had hoped for. He decided to settle in Mataiea, some forty-five kilometres from Papecte, probably on the advice of a Tahitian chef whom he had befriended. There Gauguin rented a native-style oval bamboo hut, roofed with pandanu leaves. It was probably soon after this that he painted Vahine no te tiare, his first portrait of a Tahitian model, Gauguin painted Deux femmes sur la plage in 1891. 

Gauguin painted Ta Matete and Vahine no te vi, in the spring of 1892. Gauguin set sail for France on June 14 1893. Gauguin's paternal uncle in Orleans left him 13,000 frances. Gauguin did a number of wood cuts. Back in Thaiti, extravagant spending soon exhausted Gauguin's savings. On arrival in September 1895 he had set about having a spacious, purpose - built dewelling constructed at Punaauia, sparing no expense on the installation of a studio. The reason the two-year-old injury to his ankle refused to heal was not just the tropical climate, as Gauguin thought, but the advancement of syphilis, as yet undiagnosed the disease that eventually led to his death in 1903. I found Paul Gauguin interesting because he sacrificed family, a successful political career and his health for his art. Gauguin had a dream, he gave all for that dream to come true. Passion like Gauguin's inspire me to be an artist. I believe that for a dream to be realized a person needs devotion like Paul Gauguin's. His life had a direct influence