Paul Gauguin: an unusual biography of an unusual person. Projects and books Artist Paul Gauguin biography

“No one wants my paintings because they are not like other artists…

A strange, insane public that demands the greatest possible originality from the painter - and at the same time does not accept him if his works do not resemble the works of others! The works of Gauguin never resembled others. Because he invented his art all his life.

Today he is called one of the most expensive artists in the world. In 2015, his painting “When is the wedding?” was bought for $300 million. If the impoverished poster-poster Paul Gauguin had known about this in the mid-1880s, he would have laughed. His fate did not portend any glory, or wealth, or worldwide recognition.

wanderer

It seems that Paul Gauguin was destined to wander the world. His grandmother Flora Tristan left France for Latin America. He himself was born in Paris in 1848, but rather quickly his family went to relatives in Peru. On the way, during this move, my father died. At the age of 17, Paul was hired on a merchant ship and saw Chile and Brazil ... What attracted him? The desire to be on the road all the time, not to sit still. Or maybe they were frightened by the gray everyday life in French Orleans, where the family ended up after returning from Peru. Sometimes it seems that Gauguin spent half his life on the road.

stock broker

The epic with the merchant fleet cost Paul the favor of his mother. But the guardian, family friend Gustave Aroz, helped the young man and got him a job at the stock exchange. Prosperous years began, Gauguin married the Danish Mette Gad, he had five children, he was satisfied with both life and his hobby. On Sundays, when he had free time, he painted.

At first it was just a pleasant hobby. And then, through the mediation of the same Aros, he met the Impressionists, realized how close their ideas were to him, took part in exhibitions ... And gradually he felt that painting was his real vocation.

in poverty

Metta did not understand and did not accept the refusal to work on the stock exchange and the decision to devote herself to art. She decided to live in her native Copenhagen with all the children, except for the youngest, who stayed with his father. They ended up in Paris in real poverty: the exhibitions were not fed, the paintings were not sold, and sometimes they had to be left to innkeepers in payment for hospitality. And the future most expensive artist in the world earned by posting posters on the Parisian streets.

Impressionism, which Gauguin followed, is in crisis, and, immersed in creative searches, Paul leaves for Brittany. Again on the road, again restless, but he is painfully looking for a new creative manner. This is how synthetism is born - a simplified writing style, bright colors, decorativeness, the desire to combine pictures of the real world and one's own idea-impression of them. Those features by which we unmistakably recognize the master's hand.

Heaven on earth. What was he looking for on the island?

In the late 1880s and early 1890s, Gauguin again traveled a lot. They say that he was looking for Paradise on Earth, so he visited Martinique, the Marquesas Islands, and Tahiti. It is with Tahiti that the name of the artist is associated today.

“He rebelled against God, like an angel of darkness, and the Lord overthrew him, like Satanail, - the artist Gauguin ended his days in drunkenness and debauchery, suffering from a shameful disease ...”,- the head of the local Catholic mission spoke about him not too flattering. Well, Gauguin really was not a model of morality: he did not go to church, lived with a minor mistress, drank himself and soldered the natives, and at the end of his life he fell ill with syphilis ... And he worked: during his life in Tahiti, he painted a total of about 100 paintings. But there was no recognition, and therefore no money.

What was he looking for on the island? Most likely, the original native beauty. But it no longer existed: European settlers gradually killed local traditions, eradicated customs. However, the bright colors of the island and the continuing naturalness of life did not let go of the artist.

The audience laughed at his paintings

Gauguin tried to return to Paris, visited there on short trips. He held exhibitions, but the public laughed at his paintings, considering them similar to illustrations from children's books. Living in Tahiti or the Marquesas Islands was easier - cheaper, so with the help of friends, he again returned to his never found earthly paradise.

And he wrote less and less. Although he remained a prominent figure. Distinguished in his youth with great physical strength, bending horseshoes, working as a digger, Gauguin always attracted attention. In Tahiti, he clashed with local officials, published a newspaper with a circulation of 20 copies, incited local residents not to send their children to a Catholic school ... And he was not going to return to Paris, where a wave of interest in his paintings and his popularity was already beginning to grow. But he didn't know about it.

Gauguin died in 1903. The artist's friends did not rule out that it was murder or suicide: there was a syringe with morphine near the body. He was buried, the property was sold under the hammer, and part of it was simply thrown away. The local gendarmes did not yet know that Europe was starting to go crazy over his canvases...

Gauguin's carved walking sticks are now in the New York Museum. The beams of the hut, which the artist covered with not quite decent carvings, were transported to Boston. Each copy of the newspaper published by Gauguin is worth its weight in gold.

Paul Gauguin completed the painting “Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?", took a box of poison and went to the mountains to die

Painting "Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?" has one feature: it is “read” not from left to right, but from right to left, like Kabbalistic texts that Gauguin was interested in.

1. Sleeping baby symbolizes the human soul before its earthly incarnation. According to the art critic Marina Prokofieva, “Gauguin was a mystic, passionate about Theosophy, and believed that human souls, before descending into the material world, are in infantile bliss in heaven.”

2. Dog- a symbol of the troubles that await a person on earth.

3. Three women symbolize the first stage of the stay of the human soul in the body shell before the discovery in it of the desire for self-knowledge. “These women do not get stuck in soul-searching, they are not tormented by doubts, but thoughtlessly surrender to the happiness of material existence,” says Marina Prokofieva.

4. A man plucking fruit from the tree of good and evil, - a symbol of the awakening in a person of the desire to comprehend the secrets of the universe.
As a theosophist, Gauguin believed that the desire to discover the secrets of the world order was inherent in man from the very beginning. But in someone it awakens, but in someone it does not.

5. Figure with a hand on his head personifies the second stage in the development of the human soul, when it despairs of the inability to find answers to the "damned questions" of being.

6. Two figures in red. “In the painting by Gauguin,” says Marina Prokofieva, “they represent the third stage of spiritual development, when a person acquires the ability to analyze. These are two wise men confiding their thoughts to each other.

7. Bird- a symbol of the spiritual path, taken by Gauguin from ancient Egyptian art.

8. Woman in black symbolizes the soul at the highest stage of development, when it comprehends the meaning of its earthly incarnation. It lies in the fact that the soul needs to be tempered in suffering. “A woman in black is mournful, but calm,” notes Prokofieva, “because it is clear to her that the suffering to which people who have chosen the spiritual path are doomed in this world is followed by an afterlife reward - joyful peace.”

9. Source- a symbol of eternity.

10. Statue of a deity personifies the hope for the resurrection in heaven of the liberated soul.

11. The figure of a teenager symbolizes the rudimentary level of development of the soul in those in whom the desire for self-realization has not been revealed and who is familiar only with the life of the body.

12. Goat, kitten and puppy- these are, according to Gauguin, symbols of a carefree existence, in which the realm of material nature resides, which does not know the torments of spiritual search.

13. Nude- a symbol of sensual pleasure, which is pursued by those who live according to the laws of the material world.

14. Old woman symbolizes the doom of the body to death. “Her undeveloped soul,” says Marina Prokofieva, “will be doomed to an amorphous existence that does not know pain, but does not know joy either.”

15. Bird with a lizard in its claws- this, according to Gauguin, is a symbol of the inevitability of the hour of death.

16. Name of the painting in French - D'ou venons nous? Que sommes nous? Ou allons nous? Today the painting is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA).

Gauguin's life is an escape. A manic escape from civilization. Paul was born in Paris, but until the age of seven he was brought up in a Peruvian estate with his uncle and forever fell in love with exotic nature, a measured life and the simplicity of human relationships. France, where he returned with his mother in 1855, never became his home. Therefore, the artist liked to travel to distant countries. And when he turned forty-seven (in 1895), he decided to permanently move to Polynesia, to Tahiti, where he had already been.

However, this time life on the island did not work out. Gauguin quarreled with the new colonial administration and therefore could not get a job. The accumulated money quickly ran out. It remained only to paint pictures and send them to France in the hope of selling. But patrons were not particularly interested in Gauguin's work, and the artist was mired in debt. In addition, he began to have serious health problems: his legs became inflamed, his heart ached, he was tormented by eczema, and attacks of hemoptysis did not let go. Conjunctivitis and dizziness were not allowed to work.

“I don’t even have a piece of bread,” Paul wrote to his friend Daniel Monfred in the autumn of 1897, “to restore strength. I support myself with water, sometimes with guava and mango fruits, which are now ripe, and even with freshwater shrimp. Gauguin was choked by depression, and he decided to commit suicide. But before his death, he wanted to paint the last picture, which would become a spiritual testament.

“I think,” the artist addressed Monfred, “that this canvas ... will surpass all previous ones ... I put into it ... all my energy, all my passion.” By the end of December 1897, the work “Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?" was ready. And in early January 1898, Gauguin took a box of arsenic and went to the mountains. There he chose to die.

However, the artist overdid it - he took too much poison, which provoked non-stop vomiting. Thanks to her, Gauguin escaped. The failed suicide suffered all night, but survived. The next morning, he staggered to his hut and fell asleep, and when he woke up, he felt a forgotten thirst for life. Psychologists know cases when an unsuccessful suicide attempt relieved depression.

In 1898, fate took pity on Gauguin: the paintings slowly began to sell, he managed to get a job as a clerk in the Public Works Administration, the conjunctivitis passed - the artist spent all his free time at the easel. A new stage of creativity began: Gauguin created a series of paintings thematically close to “Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?”, but in a different, sunny palette.

PAINTER Paul Gauguin 1848 - Born in Paris in the family of a journalist. 1849 - I went to Peru with my parents. 1855 - Returned to France. 1865–1871 - Served in the navy. 1871 - Became a stockbroker in Paris, began to paint (landscapes in the style of impressionism: "Snowy Garden", 1879; "Apple Trees", 1879). 1883 - He left the exchange for the sake of art ("Breton shepherdess", 1886; "Bather at the mill", 1886). 1888 - Broke with impressionism, began to work in the manner of post-impressionism ("Vision after the sermon", "In a cafe", "White Horse"). 1891 - He made his first trip to Tahiti, painted the pictures “Where are you going?”, “Conversation”, “Are you jealous?”. 1893 - Returned to France, created the Tahitian cycle ("Tahitian woman with fruit", "Mountains in Tahiti", "Otahi alone", "Source of fresh water", "Sunday"). 1895 - Went to Tahiti again, experienced a spiritual crisis (“Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?”, 1897), which marked a new stage in creativity (“Tahitian Pastorals”, “Two Girls with Mango Flowers”). 1901 - Moved to the Marquesas Islands. 1903 - He died on the island of Hiva Oa.

french artist Paul Gauguin traveled a lot, but the island of Tahiti was a special place for him - the land of "ecstasy, tranquility and art", which became a second home for the artist. It is here that he writes his most outstanding works, one of which - "Are you jealous?"- deserves special attention.

For the first time, Paul Gauguin arrived in Tahiti in 1891. He hoped to find here the embodiment of his dream of a golden age, of living in harmony with nature and people. The port of Papeete, which met him, disappointed the artist: an unremarkable town, a cold meeting with local colonists, and a lack of orders for portraits made him look for a new haven. Gauguin spent about two years in the native village of Mataiea, it was one of the most fruitful periods in his work: in 2 years he painted about 80 canvases. 1893-1895 he spends in France, and then leaves again for Oceania, never to return.

Gauguin always spoke of Tahiti with particular warmth: “I was captivated by this land and its people, simple, not spoiled by civilization. To create something new, we must turn to our origins, to the childhood of mankind. The Eva I choose is almost an animal, so she remains chaste, even naked. All Venuses exhibited in the Salon look indecent, disgustingly lustful ... ". Gauguin did not tire of admiring Tahitian women, their seriousness and simplicity, majesty and spontaneity, unusual beauty and natural charm. He painted them on all his canvases.

Painting "Are you jealous?" was written during Gauguin's first stay in Tahiti, in 1892. It was during this period of creativity that an extraordinary harmony of color and form appeared in his style. Starting from an ordinary plot, peeped in the everyday life of Tahitian women, the artist creates real masterpieces in which color becomes the main carrier of symbolic content. Critic Paul Delaroche wrote: "If Gauguin, representing jealousy, does this with pink and purple, then it seems that all nature takes part in this."

The artist explained his creative style during this period as follows: “I take as a pretext any theme borrowed from life or nature, and, despite the placement of lines and colors, I get a symphony and harmony that does not represent anything completely real in the exact meaning of this word…”. Gauguin denied the reality that the realists wrote - he created a different one.

The plot of the picture "Are you jealous?" also peeped in the daily life of Tahitian women: aboriginal sisters, after bathing, bask on the shore and talk about love. One of the memories suddenly causes jealousy of one of the sisters, which made the second suddenly sit down on the sand and exclaim: "Ah, you're jealous!" The artist wrote these words in the lower left corner of the canvas, reproducing Tahitian speech in Latin letters. From this accidental episode of someone else's life, a masterpiece of art was born.

Both girls depicted in the picture are naked, but in their nakedness, despite their sensual poses, there is nothing shameful, strange, erotic or vulgar. Their nakedness is as natural as the extraordinarily bright exotic nature around. According to the European canons of beauty, they can hardly be called attractive, but they seem beautiful to Gauguin, and he fully manages to capture his emotional state on the canvas.

Gauguin attached special importance to this picture. In 1892, he told a friend in a letter: "I have recently painted a magnificent picture of nudes, two women on the beach, which I think is the best thing I have ever done." Tahitian women are mysterious and inexplicably beautiful, just like others

1848-1903: between these figures - the whole life of the largest, great, brilliant painter Paul Gauguin.

"The only way to become God is to do as He does: to create."

Paul Gauguin

in the photo: a fragment of the picture Paul Gauguin"Self-portrait with palette", 1894

Details of life Paul Gauguin formed one of the most unusual biographies in the history of art. His life really gave different people reasons to talk about it, admire, laugh, resent and kneel.

Paul Gauguin: The Early Years

Paul Eugene Henri Gauguin Born in Paris on June 7, 1848 in the family of journalist Clovis Gauguin, a staunch radical. After the defeat of the June uprising, the family Gauguin for security reasons, she was forced to move to relatives in Peru, where Clovis intended to publish his own magazine. But on the way to South America, the journalist died of a heart attack, leaving his wife with two small children. We must pay tribute to the mental stamina of the artist's mother, who alone, without complaints, raised children.

A shining example of courage in a family environment fields was his grandmother Flora Tristan, one of the first socialist and feminist in the country, who published in 1838 the autobiographical book "The Wanderings of a Pariah". From her Paul Gauguin inherited not only external resemblance, but also her character, her temperament, indifference to public opinion and love of travel.

Memories of life with relatives in Peru were so dear Gauguin that he later called himself a "Peruvian savage". At first, nothing foretold him the fate of a great artist. After 6 years of living in Peru, the family returned to France. But the gray provincial life in Orleans and studying at a Parisian boarding school got tired Gauguin, and at the age of 17, against the will of his mother, he entered the service of the French merchant fleet and traveled to Brazil, Chile, Peru, and then off the coast of Denmark and Norway. It was the first, by generally accepted standards, shame, which Paul brought to his family. The mother, who died during his voyage, did not forgive her son and, as a punishment, deprived him of any inheritance. Returning to Paris in 1871, Gauguin with the help of his guardian Gustave Arosa, a friend of his mother, he got a position as a broker in one of the most reputable stock exchange firms in the capital. field was 23 years old, and before him opened a brilliant career. He started a family quite early and became an exemplary father of a family (he had 5 children).

"Family in the Garden" Paul Gauguin, 1881, oil on canvas, New Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen

Painting as a hobby

But their stable well-being Gauguin without hesitation, he sacrificed his passion for painting. paint Gauguin started in the 1870s. At first it was a Sunday hobby, and Paul modestly assessed his capabilities, and the family considered his passion for painting a sweet eccentricity. Through Gustave Arosa, who loved art and collected paintings, Paul Gauguin met several impressionists, enthusiastically accepting their ideas.

After participating in 5 exhibitions of the Impressionists, the name Gauguin sounded in artistic circles: the artist was already shining through the Parisian broker. And Gauguin decided to devote himself entirely to painting, and not to be, in his words, a “Sunday artist”. The stock market crisis of 1882, which crippled the financial situation, also contributed to the choice in favor of art. Gauguin. But the financial crisis also affected painting: paintings sold poorly, and family life Gauguin turned into a fight for survival. Moving to Rouen, and later to Copenhagen, where the artist sold canvas products, and his wife gave French lessons, did not save him from poverty, and marriage Gauguin broke up. Gauguin returned to Paris with his youngest son, where he found neither peace of mind nor well-being. To feed his son, the great artist was forced to earn money by posting posters. “I knew real poverty,” wrote Gauguin in "Notebook for Alina", his beloved daughter. - It is true that, despite everything, suffering sharpens the talent. However, it should not be too much, otherwise it will kill you.”

"Flowers and a Japanese book", Paul Gauguin, 1882, oil on wood, New Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen

Formation of your own style

for painting Gauguin it was a turning point. The artist's school was impressionism, which reached its peak at that time, and the teacher was Camille Pissarro, one of the founders of impressionism. The name of the patriarch of impressionism Camille Pissarro allowed Gauguin take part in five of the eight Impressionist exhibitions between 1874 and 1886.

"Waterhole", Paul Gauguin, 1885, oil on canvas, private collection

In the mid-1880s, the crisis of impressionism began, and Paul Gauguin began to find his way in art. A trip to the picturesque Brittany, which preserved its ancient traditions, marked the beginning of changes in the artist's work: he moved away from impressionism and developed his own style, combining elements of Breton culture with a radically simplified style of writing - Synthetism. This style is characterized by a simplification of the image, transmitted by bright, unusually shining colors, and deliberately excessive decorativeness.

Synthetism appeared and manifested itself around 1888 in the works of other artists of the Pont-Aven school— Émile Bernard, Louis Anquetin, Paul Serusier and others. A feature of the synthetic style was the desire of artists to “synthesize” the visible and imaginary worlds, and often what was created on the canvas was a memory of what they had once seen. As a new trend in art, synthetism gained prominence after an organized Gauguin exhibitions in the Parisian café Volpini in 1889. New ideas Gauguin became the aesthetic concept of the well-known Nabis group, from which a new artistic movement, Art Nouveau, grew.

"Vision after the sermon (Struggle of Jacob with an angel)", Paul Gauguin, 1888, oil on canvas, 74.4 x 93.1 cm, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

The art of ancient peoples as a source of inspiration for European painting

The crisis of Impressionism put the artists who abandoned the blind "imitation of nature" with the need to find new sources of inspiration. The art of the ancient peoples became a truly inexhaustible source of inspiration for European painting and had a strong influence on its development.

Paul Gauguin style

Phrase from a letter Gauguin"You can always find solace in the primitive" testifies to his heightened interest in primitive art. Style Gauguin, harmoniously combining impressionism, symbolism, Japanese graphics and children's illustration, was perfect for depicting "uncivilized" peoples. If the Impressionists, each in their own way, sought to analyze the colorful world, conveying reality without a special psychological and philosophical basis, then Gauguin not only offered virtuoso technique, he reflected in art:

"For me, a great artist is the formula for the greatest mind."

His paintings are metaphors full of harmony with complex meanings, often permeated with pagan mysticism. The figures of people, which he painted from nature, acquired a symbolic, philosophical meaning. With color relationships, the artist conveyed mood, state of mind, thoughts: for example, the pink color of the earth in the paintings is a symbol of joy and abundance.

"Day of the Deity (Mahana no Natua)", Paul Gauguin, 1894, oil on canvas, Art Institute of Chicago, USA

Dreamer by nature Paul Gauguin all his life he was looking for an earthly paradise in order to capture it in his works. Looked for him in Brittany, Martinique, Tahiti, the Marquesas. Three trips to Tahiti (in 1891, 1893 and 1895), where the artist painted a number of his famous works, brought disappointment: the primitiveness of the island was lost. Diseases introduced by Europeans reduced the population of the island from 70 to 7 thousand, and along with the islanders, their rituals, art and local crafts died out. in the picture Gauguin“Girl with a Flower” one can feel the duality of the cultural structure on the island at that time: this is eloquently evidenced by the European dress of the girl.

"Girl with a flower" Paul Gauguin

In their search for a new, unique artistic language Gauguin was not alone: ​​the desire for change in art united dissimilar and original artists ( Seurat, Signac, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard and others), giving birth to a new trend - post-impressionism. Despite the fundamental dissimilarity of styles and handwriting, in the work of the Post-Impressionists, not only ideological unity can be traced, but also commonality in everyday life—as a rule, loneliness and the tragedy of life situations. The public did not understand them, and they did not always understand each other. In reviews of the exhibition of paintings Gauguin brought from Tahiti, one could read:

"To amuse your children, send them to an exhibition Gauguin. They will amuse themselves in front of colored pictures depicting four-armed female creatures sprawled on a billiard table ... ".

After such derogatory criticism Paul Gauguin he did not stay at home and in 1895 again, and for the last time, he left for Tahiti. In 1901, the artist moved to Domenique Island (Marquesas Islands), where he died of a heart attack on May 8, 1903. Paul Gauguin He was buried at the local Catholic cemetery of Domenic Island (Hiva Oa).

"Riders on the Coast" Paul Gauguin, 1902

Even after the death of the artist, the French authorities in Tahiti, who persecuted him during his lifetime, mercilessly cracked down on his artistic heritage. Ignorant officials sold his paintings, sculptures, wooden reliefs under the hammer for pennies. The gendarme conducting the auction broke a carved cane in front of the assembled people. Gauguin, but hid his paintings and, returning to Europe, opened a museum of the artist. Recognition came to Gauguin 3 years after his death, when 227 of his works were exhibited in Paris. The French press, which maliciously ridiculed the artist during his lifetime about each of his few exhibitions, began to print laudatory odes to his art. Articles, books and memoirs were written about him.

"When is the wedding?", Paul Gauguin, 1892, oil on canvas, Basel, Switzerland (until 2015)

Once in a letter to Paul Serusier Gauguin Desperately suggested: “... my paintings scare me. The public will never accept them." However, the pictures Gauguin the public accepts and buys for big money. For example, in 2015, an unnamed buyer from Qatar (according to the IMF—the richest country in the world since 2010) bought a painting Gauguin"When is the wedding?", for 300 million dollars. Painting Gauguin received the honorary status of the most expensive painting in the world.

To be fair, it should be noted that Gauguin did not care at all about the lack of public interest in his work. He was convinced: “Everyone should follow their passion. I know that people will understand me less and less. But can it really matter?" Entire life Paul Gauguin was a fight against philistinism and prejudice. He always lost, but thanks to his obsession, he never gave up. The love of art, which lived in his indomitable heart, became a guiding star for the artists who followed in his footsteps.

The naked woman was a common sight in South America, and this had a great influence on the rest of Gauguin's life. Later, he always felt absolutely free and uninhibited precisely in the company of naked women. In 1855, Paul and his mother returned to Paris. At 17, he decided to become a sailor to see the world. After 6 years, he left the sea and decided to become a stockbroker. At first he even got a little rich, and then, after the collapse of the Paris stock exchange in 1883, he decided to concentrate all his efforts on art. This decision destroyed his family, doomed him to a half-starved existence and gave the world magnificent works of art. Gauguin became close friends with other artists of his time, such as Pissarro, Cezanne and Van Gogh, and in the 80s he actively participated in exhibitions of the Impressionists. At the end of 1888, he lived with Van Gogh for two and a half months in the "yellow house" in Arles. They turned out to be completely incompatible characters, and Gauguin left for Paris. In 1891, Gauguin managed to sell thirty of his paintings. Feeling ever-increasing alienation in relation to his wife and, in general, to the whole of Western civilization, Gauguin left for Tahiti. Gauguin spent the rest of his life in the southern latitudes, returning only once for two years to Europe in 1893. He died in poverty, forgotten by everyone, in the Marquesas Islands.

"Two Women" by Gauguin, fragment

From a young age, when Gauguin sailed the seas and oceans, and until the last months of his life, when he died of syphilis in the Marquesas Islands, Gauguin always led a very stormy and active sex life. In 1873, when he married a tall, beautiful Danish woman, Matt Sophie Gad, Gauguin began to lead a very respectable lifestyle. When, in 1883, Gauguin decided to leave the job of a stockbroker forever, Mette became terribly angry, and her parents, in whose house Gauguin and his wife lived in Copenhagen for some time, ridiculed him. The situation in the family was tense to the limit. The almost complete lack of money also played an important role in the development of events. Gauguin and Matt divorced. However, even after leaving for Tahiti, Gauguin still hoped that someday Matt and his five children would come to him and they would live together again. They never arrived.

Arriving in Tahiti in 1891, Gauguin found inspiration there and a huge number of naked women. At first, he simply enjoyed the local custom of spending the night in his hut with a new woman each time. Soon, however, he realized that this wonderful custom greatly hindered his creativity. He passionately desired to find the one and only woman whom he could call his chosen one. Soon, in a nearby village, he was introduced to a beautiful young girl named Theura. She immediately liked Gauguin. Convinced that she voluntarily entered into an alliance with him and that she did not have any diseases, Gauguin took Theura to live in his hut. After a week of living together with Gauguin, Theura agreed to stay in his hut. Gauguin later often used Theura as a model for his work.

In 1893, he left for France, leaving the pregnant Teura in Tahiti. In Paris, he renewed his sexual relationship with Juliette Huet, an ugly, reserved woman who worked as a seamstress. He also began a relationship that later brought him a lot of trouble with a 13-year-old homeless half-Indian half-Malaika, whom everyone called Anna Yavanskaya. She distracted him from work all the time, and when the two of them left for Brittany, it immediately became clear that the locals did not like her very much. One day, she started bullying a group of kids walking past her. A scuffle arose, which turned into a fight, during which Gauguin was beaten to a pulp by local residents who came to the rescue. They stopped beating him only when he lost consciousness. After some time, when Gogen had not yet fully recovered, Anna left him forever, taking with her from the apartment where they lived, all valuable things, except for his paintings.

When Gauguin returned to Tahiti in 1895, he was sure that his happy family life with Theura would continue. It turned out, however, that Theura had married an islander. week. Te ura, however, lived with Gauguin in his hut, but she was so frightened by the ulcers that appeared on his body from syphilis that she returned back to her husband. Gauguin lost his regular partner, but acquired a large number of new ones. Once he even complained: "These girls are just crazy, they climb right into my bed every night. Last night, for example, I had three of them at once." He again began to look for "a serious woman to bring into the house" and found a pretty 14-year-old Paura. She did not have such a stimulating effect on his work as Theura, but he nevertheless painted her naked and later declared himself: "This is the best of all that I painted."

Paul Gauguin "Te Poipoi (Morning)". Reproduction from oldmasterpiece.com

In 1901, Gauguin moved to one of the Marquesas Islands and built himself a hut, which he decorated with pornographic photographs. He agreed to sexual relations with almost all local women, who often came to his hut. All of them were driven by curiosity: they really wanted to look at the terrible ulcers with which syphilis awarded Gauguin's legs. When some unfamiliar woman entered his hut, Gauguin took off her clothes, examined her body, and then said: "I have to draw you."

In 1903, Gauguin died of a heart attack.

Gauguin once remarked: “In Europe, sexual intercourse is the result of love. In Oceania, love is the result of sexual intercourse. Who is right here? They say that a person who gives his body to another commits a sin. sells her body. Women want to be free. It is their right. But it is not men who stand in their way to such freedom. A woman will be free the day she realizes that her honor is not stored in the place that is in below her navel. It is on this day that she will be free. And, perhaps, healthier."