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120 years since the death of Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin, died 120 years ago in French Polynesia, in the commune of Atuona (Hiva Oa) in the archipelago of the Marquesas Islands.
Gauguin, born on June 7, 1848 in Paris, is one of the most important precursors of modern art embodying the spirit of post-impressionism. Although nothing predestined him to art, he began his career as a sailor at the age of 17 and then as a stockbroker after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and until the crack stock market of 1882.
It was not until 1874 that he met the famous painter Camille Pissarro, who introduced him to Impressionism and gave him a new sense of pictorial composition and colour.
Paul Gauguin hardly knew the success of his lifetime and symbolizes the myth of the cursed artist, in search of a truth and a form of mysticism.
Despite this, he had a great influence on the work of many famous artists, such as Vincent Van Gogh. Father of the Pont Avent school, he was an innovative actor in the artistic currents of this period, notably Nabism and Impressionism.
Ruined and feeling rejected by Western society, but also by thirst for exoticism, he decided to go to islands of the South Seas whose beauty was praised by sailors such as Bougainville or Loti. He arrived in Tahiti in 1891 for a first stay of two years. Indeed disappointed by the colonial society of Tahiti, he left for France but the scorned reception of critics and collectors pushed him definitely towards the shores of Polynesia.
In 1901, after spending 6 years in Tahiti, Gauguin moved to the Marquesas archipelago in search of more authenticity, where he built his " Maison du Jouir ".
Tormented by his demons, Gauguin did not succeed in being accepted by the Marquisas people and even less by the Catholic Church because of his depraved lifestyle and especially because of his relations with very young girls.
In addition to alcoholism, he is increasingly seriously sick with syphilis but especially with wounds in his legs, whose suffering is so intolerable that he uses morphine and opium tincture. His heart failure worsened his condition day by day. Now he no longer had the strength to paint. He died of an overdose, alone in his house, on May 8, 1903.
All his goods are sold or destroyed and the artist falls into oblivion. While in Europe his work is rediscovered through the exhibitions of the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1903 and his retrospective in 1906. Gauguin left his mark on the main movements of modern art, such as Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism and paved the way for great artists such as Pablo Picasso.
Fare Rata, the Polynesia Post Office pays tribute to the work of an artist in search of an ideal world, hoping that he has found peace in the valleys of Hiva Oa.
Retrouvez votre circulaire téléchargeable ici
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| Unit price: 580 FCFP (4,86 €) |
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