1848 -1903 · Paris, Brittany, Tahiti and Marquesas Islands

Powerful flat areas, synthetic contours and interior symbols make Paul Gauguin one of the great inventors of modern color.

Paul Gauguin was born in Paris in 1848 and died in Atuona, in the Marquesas Islands, in 1903. His childhood in Lima and his years as a sailor nourished an imagination of travel very early on. Having become a stockbroker in Paris, he first painted as an amateur and exhibited with the Impressionists between 1879 and 1886. After the financial crisis of 1882, he gradually abandoned finance for art. In Brittany, with Émile Bernard, he developed synthetism: large flat colored areas, dark contours and simplified shapes replaced impressionist observation. In Brittany, with Émile Bernard, he developed synthetism: large flat colored areas, dark contours and simplified shapes replaced impressionist observation. In Brittany, with Émile Bernard, he developed synthetism: large flat colored areas, dark contours and simplified shapes replaced impressionist observation. In Brittany, with Émile Bernard, he developed synthetism: large flat colored areas, dark contours and simplified shapes replaced impressionist observation. In Brittany, with Émile Bernard, he developed synthetism: large flat colored areas, dark contours and simplified shapes replaced impressionist observation. The yellow Christ transposes the Passion into a Breton autumn landscape where the yellow of the body radiates like a spiritual sign. In 1891, Gauguin left for Tahiti, which he wrongly imagines as a world preserved from colonization. His paintings combine observation, memories, European references and personal projections. Ia Orana Maria adapts the Annunciation to a Tahitian setting, while Two Tahitian Women on the Beach combines monumentality of figures and silence. Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, painted in 1897-1898, brings together the ages of life in a vast symbolic meditation. His influence on wild animals, Picasso and the expressionists is immense, even if his colonial gaze is today critically reread. His influence on the Fauves, Picasso and the Expressionists is immense, even if his colonial gaze is today critically reread. His influence on the Fauves, Picasso and the Expressionists is immense, even if his colonial gaze is today critically reread. His influence on the Fauves, Picasso and the Expressionists is immense, even if his colonial gaze is today critically reread. His influence on the Fauves, Picasso and the Expressionists is immense, even if his colonial gaze is today critically reread. His influence on the Fauves, Picasso and the Expressionists is immense, even if his colonial gaze is today critically reread. His influence on the Fauves, Picasso and the Expressionists is immense, even if his colonial gaze is today critically reread. His influence on are we going? and Ia Orana Maria. Its reading favors color.

Gauguin does not describe color: he gives it a mental, spiritual and symbolic function capable of completely reinventing the visible world.