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Impressionism
A Brief History
French/European
Impressionists
Monet,
Claude
Van Gogh,Vincent
Renoir, Pierre Auguste
Degas, Edgar
Cezanne, Paul
Seurat, Georges
Manet, Eduoard
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri
Sisley, Alfred
Pissarro, Camille Jacob
Morisot, Berthe
Boudin, Eugene
Caillebotte, Gustave
Sorolla, Joaquin
Fantin-Latour, Henri
Bonnard, Pierre
Gauguin, Paul
Vuillard, Edouard
Martin, Henri
Redon, Odilon
Other Impressionists
American
Impressionists
Thompson,
Richard Earl
Cassatt, Mary
Sargent, John Singer
Whistler, James McNeill
Hassam, Childe
Benson, Frank Weston
Prendergast, Maurice
Twachtman, John Henry
Chase, William Merritt
Tarbell, Edward
Vonnoh, Robert
Reid, Robert
Metcalf, Willard
Beaux, Cecilia
Potthast, Edward
Chadwick, William
Hale, Philip Leslie
Curran, Charles Courtney
Graves, Abbott Fueller
Frieseke, Frederick
Glackens, William
Maley, Alan
Ruby,
Claire
Terelak, John C
Wallis, Kent
Schofield, Michael
Plisson, Henri
Romanello, Diane
Singley, Greg
Title, Christian
Horning, Elizabeth
Hatfield, Don
Aspevig, Clyde
Afsary, Cyrus
Hayslette, Max
Schmid, Richard
Dunlay, Thomas
Ellis, Ray
Gertenbach, Lynn
Zhan, Charles
Duncan, Robert
Hails, Barbara
Wood, Barbara
Behrens, Howard
Other Impressionists
Popular
Favorites
Dali,
Salvador
Michelangelo
Da Vinci, Leonardo
Picasso, Pablo
Rockwell, Norman
Matisse, Henri E
Klimt, Gustav
Escher, M.C.
Mucha, Alphonse
Potter, Beatrix
Geddes, Anne
Anderson, Kim
Vettriano, Jack
O'Keeffe, Georgia
Parrish, Maxfield
Homer, Winslow
Hopper, Edward
Wyeth, Andrew
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Paul
Gauguin Biography and Paintings
Deux Thaitiennes Art Print
Gauguin, Paul
20 in. x 28 in.
Buy
Deaus Thaitiennes
Framed Mounted
Paul Gauguin Biography
Gauguin, (Eugène-Henri-)
Paul (b. June 7, 1848, Paris, Fr.--d. May 8, 1903, Atuona, Hiva Oa,
Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia), one of the leading French painters
of the Postimpressionist period, whose development of a conceptual
method of representation was a decisive step for 20th-century art.
After spending a short period with Vincent van Gogh in Arles (1888),
Gauguin increasingly abandoned imitative art for expressiveness through
colour. From 1891 he lived and worked in Tahiti and elsewhere in the
South Pacific. His masterpieces include the early Vision After the
Sermon (1888) and Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We
Going? (1897-98).
Although his main
achievements were to lie elsewhere, Gauguin was, to use a fanciful
metaphor, nursed in the bosom of Impressionism. His attitudes to art
were deeply influenced by his experience of its first exhibition,
and he himself participated in those of 1880, 1881 and 1882. The son
of a French journalist and a Peruvian Creole, whose mother had been
a writer and a follower of Saint-Simon, he was brought up in Lima,
joined the merchant navy in 1865, and in 1872 began a successful career
as a stockbroker in Paris.
In 1874 he saw the
first Impressionist exhibition, which completely entranced him and
confirmed his desire to become a painter. He spent some 17,000 francs
on works by Manet, Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, Renoir and Guillaumin.
Pissarro took a special interest in his attempts at painting, emphasizing
that he should `look for the nature that suits your temperament',
and in 1876 Gauguin had a landscape in the style of Pissarro accepted
at the Salon. In the meantime Pissarro had introduced him to Cézanne,
for whose works he conceived a great respect---so much so that the
older man began to fear that he would steal his `sensations'. All
three worked together for some time at Pontoise, where Pissarro and
Gauguin drew pencil sketches of each other (Cabinet des Dessins, Louvre).
In 1883-84 the bank
that employed him got into difficulties and Gauguin was able to paint
every day. He settled for a while in Rouen, partly because Paris was
too expensive for a man with five children, partly because he thought
it would be full of wealthy patrons who might buy his works. Rouen
proved a disappointment, and he joined his wife Mette and
children, who had gone back to Denmark, where she had been born. His
experience of Denmark was not a happy one and, having returned to
Paris, he went to paint in Pont-Aven, a well-known resort for artists.
Here, he stopped working exclusively
out-of-doors, as Pissarro had taught him, and generally began to adopt
a more independent line. His meeting with van Gogh, the influence
of Seurat, the doctrines of Signac, and a rediscovery of the merits
of Degas--especially in his pastels--all combined with his own streak
of megalomania to produce a style that had little in common with the
thoughtful lyricism of the work of his erstwhile mentor Pissarro.
Monet confessed to a liking of his Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
(1888; National Gallery of Scotland), which he saw at the exhibition
Gauguin organized in 1891 to finance his projected excursion to places
where he could live on `ecstasy, calmness and art'; the proceeds amounted
to 10,0000 francs, some of it coming from Degas, who bought several
paintings. There were still evident in these new works traces of pure
Impressionism, and of the very clear influence of Cézanne (as
in the Portrait of Marie Lagadu, 1890; Art Institute of Chicago)--a
fact pointed up by a Cézanne still life owned by Gauguin which
is shown behind her--but basically this period marked the parting
of the ways between Gauguin and Impressionism
Courtesy Web Museum Paris
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