Paul Gauguin Quotes on Art

Paul Gauguin was a famous French Post-Impressionist painter and printmaker. He is best known for his paintings of the French Polynesian island of Tahiti where he painted the people and landscape. Famous Paul Gauguin paintings include “The Yellow Christ (Le Christ jaune)”, “Night Café at Arles, (Mme Ginoux)”, “Young Girl with a Fan (Jeune fille à l’éventail)”, “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?”, “Annah the Javanese”, “Spirit of the Dead Watching”, and “Woman with a Flower (Vahine no te tiare)”.

Mini biography: Born Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin on the 7th of June, 1848 in Paris, France. His mother was Aline Chazal and his father Clovis Gauguin was a journalist. Gauguin married the Danish woman Mette-Sophie Gad in 1873 and they had five children together: Émile, Aline, Clovis, Jean René and Paul Rollon. They seperated in 1891. Paul Gauguin also married Teha’amana, his “native wife” in Tahiti and they had a child together. The artist died on the 8th of May, 1903 in Atuona, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia at the age of 54. He was buried in the Calvary Cemetery, Atuona, Hiva ‘Oa, French Polynesia.

List of Famous Paul Gauguin Art Quotes

Life is hardly more than a fraction of a second. Such a little time to prepare oneself for eternity! Paul Gauguin

The flat sound of my wooden clogs on the cobblestones, deep, hollow and powerful, is the note I seek in my painting. Paul Gauguin

But I owe something to Vincent, and that is, in the consciousness of having been useful to him, the confirmation of my own original ideas about painting. And also, at difficult moments, the remembrance that one finds others unhappier than oneself. Paul Gauguin

We never really know what stupidity is until we have experimented on ourselves. Paul Gauguin

I am leaving in order to have peace and quiet, to be rid of the influence of civilization. I want only to do simple, very simple art, and to be able to do that, I have to immerse myself in virgin nature, see no one but savages, live their life, with no other thought in mind but to render, the way a child would, the concepts formed in my brain and to do this with the aid of nothing but the primitive means of art, the only means that are good and true. Paul Gauguin

Painting is the most beautiful of all arts. In it, all sensations are condensed, at its aspect everyone may create romance at the will of his imagination, and at a glance have his soul invaded by the most profound memories, no efforts of memory, everything summed up in one moment. Complete art which sums up all the others and completes them. Paul Gauguin

No one is good; no one is evil; everyone is both, in the same way and in different ways. Paul Gauguin

Oh yes! he loved yellow, this good Vincent, this painter from Holland – those glimmers of sunlight rekindled his soul, that abhorred the fog, that needed the warmth. Paul Gauguin

A time will come when people will think I am a myth, or rather something the newspapers have made up. Paul Gauguin

I am a great artist and I know it. It’s because of what I am that I have endured so much suffering, so as to pursue my vocation, otherwise I would consider myself a rogue — which is what many people think I am, for that matter. Oh well, what difference does it make. Paul Gauguin

Art is either plagiarism or revolution. Paul Gauguin

The world is so stupid that if one shows it canvases containing new and terrible elements, Tahiti will become comprehensible and charming. My Brittany pictures are now rose-water because of Tahiti; Tahiti will become eau de Cologne because of the Marquesas. Paul Gauguin

I wished to suggest by means of a simple nude, a certain long-lost barbaric luxury. Paul Gauguin

Many people say that I don’t know how to draw because I don’t draw particular forms. When will they understand that execution, drawing and color (in other words, style) must be in harmony with the poem? Paul Gauguin

Art Quotes About Paul Gauguin

I saw Gauguin; he told me his theories about art and assured me that the young would find salvation by replenishing themselves at remote and savage sources. I told him that this art did not belong to him, that he was a civilized man and hence it was his function to show us harmonious things. We parted, each unconvinced. Gauguin is certainly not without talent, but how difficult it is for him to find his own way! He is always poaching on someone’s ground; now he is pillaging the savages of Oceania. Camille Pissarro Quotes

Paul Gauguin Self Portrait Painting

More on French Artist Paul Gauguin

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Related or similar popular artists and celebrities include: Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse and Vincent van Gogh.