~ Paul Gauguin, messay and Impressionism.

At the bottom of my blog, my e-mails and some of my posts, their's this quote and I never really bothered too much about it. The other day by accident, while staring at my screen thinking about what I should write in the e-mail, I read it again. Then I realised that I don't actually know what the word epithet (see bottom) means. Not only ending there, I knew that I also don't have a clue who this Paul Gauguin dude is. "He must be French..." I thought. Thus this essay, before you, came to being (well I don't really know how it came before you, suppose you got lost through Google or some obscure protocol).

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) who had no parents left when he was 19 years of age. Born in Paris (yes he was French), left France with his parents due to political reasons. His father died out on the sea during their trip and his mother when he was 19. His first career path, sailor for French merchant fleet, lasted about six years. He then became a stock-broker at the Paris stock-exchange.

His painting career began as a hobby in 1871 (A 110 years before I was born). Paul was deeply moved with an exhibition on Impressionist (see bottom) paintings. He still made his bucks from his sturdy job as a banker though. Mette Gad, Danish, was the women in his life, and they got married in 1873, and she bared five children.

Apart form raising five children, he could also afford paintings by Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir and some other Impressionist painters, which I know nothing about. At this stage Paul could only spend time on the weekends for his newly acquired painting interest. Aged 28, 1876, one of his landscape paintings were accepted for the Salon d'Auomne. This is after he joined the Colarossi Academy for evening classes. There he was influenced by Pissarro and Paul Cezanne.

Gauguin and his wife got separated in 1885. Well that was after she went back to her parents in Denmark. And that was after his company had financial difficulties and he decided to move to Rouen. The end of the good life ended when he started his career as painter and printmaker. For six months he joined a group of avant-garde artists in Pont-Aven, Brittany. Returned to Paris, went to Panama in 1887 to work on the Panama Canal project, but was relieved after two weeks. From there he went to Martinique. By that time Gauguin already had a feeling of obliquity towards the Western Civilization. He then moved back to Paris for there he might have a better chance of making it, as a painter.

Gauguin's style made a very distinct turn in 1888. What was known as his trademark style. He used bold, flat, unrealistic colours and used mystical colours. Very similar to the then Japanese art, woodblock prints and Ukiyo-e movement along with some Art Nouveau influences. Like the typical The Yellow Christ. It's certain that the Japanese had influenced the Impressionists near the end of the 19th century.


Now comes, in short - for it's actually a story of it's own, the time when Gauguin went to the south of France and worked with Van Gogh for two months. They had a very good understanding and got along very well, but later everything kind of went pear-shaped. The quarrels became more often. This eventually lead to Van Gogh's depression, mental and nervous breakdown. He even sliced his ear. Paul thought it's a better idea to return to Paris.

By this time Paul sold a couple of several paintings and one of his clients was Edgar Degas. Gauguin made enough money to sail to Tahiti. In primitive conditions, he stayed there for two years and created some of his best works. Once again he moved back to France. Being well traveled by that time, he moved back to Tahiti in the South Sea. This was round about 1894. Gauguin lived here in great depressing poverty, eventually with a venereal disease. 1897, failed suicide. Continued to paint until his death took him from us in 1903 on Marquesas Islands.

Like almost always, the public recognized his important influence on modern art, only three years after his death. A retrospective show of his work was held at the Salon d'Automne. A bit late, yup.

Gauguin produced several woodcuts, normally monotypes. But it was when Gauguin discovered woodcuts as interesting printmaking technique. He created a set of ten colour woodcuts that was supposed to be used in Noa Noa, the book he never published about his experience in Tahiti. This was before he created his biggest woodblock Manao Tupappau.

By now I think the quote speaks for itself. What ever you think the epithet of revolutionary is, Paul thinks that you merited that, by doing something else, from that of what the people before you have done.

So that's Paul Gauguin and Impressionism. Suppose, as long as you don't copy or create something completely ridicules, that is unless ridicules is the new fashion, then your gonna be ok. And poor, financially I mean. I'll stop here before it gets redundant. By saying that it's probably too late. If you...

"In art, all who have done something other than their predecessors have merited the epithet of revolutionary; and it is they alone who are masters."
- Paul Gauguin

~ Epithet: According to some dictionaries , most, I mean the ones that I checked, like The Consise Oxford and Brainydictionary – epithet is basically an adjective describing a property, that is especially appropriate for a specific person or thing. Or secondly there is also mention of - term; expression; phrase. Another mentioned is to describe by an epithet. Nomenclature is the word that I found in the thesaurus, which is the system by which a person or community names things or the terminology of sciences. I'm sure you get the idea.

~ Impressionism: Pregnant women were warned in cartoons that they should stay clear of any exhibitions with Impressionistic art, because they'll have a miscarriage. Now I'm not quite sure how serious these people were in those days, but it is clear that Impressionism was ludicrous. In some cartoons it was even proposed to chase the Prussian army away by showing them Impressionist paintings when they were marching towards Paris, 1870. Impressionist painters were openly mocked by the public and critics. Some said the paintings were unfinished and that the painters are mad. If only they knew what was to come like the crazy Dada movement, and there is more – Cubism and Futurism, Surrealism and Superrealism, de Stijl, Constructivism and Expressionism which, by the way, all had a great influence on graphic design and visual communication. But enough of this.

This movement started as a rebellion by young artists in, you guessed it, Paris. They believed that the art establishment was too rigid. It took them from about 1863 – 1883 to get recognition. It is said that French Impressionism lead the way for the rest of the art movements in the 20th century.

The rebellion started with four friends – Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Frederic Bazille and Alfred Sisley. They used to go to common conventional painting classes together. Lets paint a picture, you use dark dominant colours, your subject is either historical or from the Greek mythology and your somewhere in an exclusive studio in Paris. Yup, thats conventional painting for you. These four thought it was a load, and took there easels outside to a forest, Fontainbleau to be exact, where they painted the movement of the light with swashbuckling strokes to create impressions. The impression of the moment. And hey, it was outdoors. Claude Monet even painted a series of the same subject at different times. Impressionism could also be recognised by the use of light and strong colours.

As we know almost every movement had a pre- and post-movement. So came Post Impressionism and Neo Impressionism. These terms were mostly use to categorize artists like, oh looky here, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh. Mainly because they used even bolder and more expressive styles.

Pointillism also had its origins here. It was George Seurat and his friend Paul Signac that started painting with many little dots. Suppose in the digital era, or are we still part of Industrialism, of today we call it Pixelism or maybe Dots-Per-Inchism for the print orientated. Nuff said...

References (informally - because it's a messay):

• History of Graphic Desing (3rd Ed) - Philip B Meggs
• www.Brainydictionary.com

And the images:

• www.FantasyArts.net - for the selfportrait
• www.MyStudios.com - for The Yellow Jesus

~ Messays?

Yup, messays is basically essays, but it is my style of writing essays. It is not those academical type of essays. But I still hope you learn something new among the muck.

later