Each month in the studio we examine a color, an artist, and an art movement. We call this article “On the Easel” On the easel this month is a color many associate with spring, sap green, and a post-impressionist artist who used this color often in his paintings…Paul Gauguin.
The Color Sap Green:
Sap Green evokes images of fresh cut grass, spring seedlings emerging from moist soil, and the infant leaves on an oak tree in spring. Spring brings out the lightheartedness in us all. In the home, like in nature, green can have a calming effect on the mind. In paintings, artist use green to illustrate freshness, purity, and optimism. One such artist who used sap green in many of his paintings is Paul Gauguin, known for his Post-Impressionist style.
The Characteristics of Post-Impressionism:
In Post-Impressionism you see a moving away from the small brush strokes of color that Impressionistic painters used. Those tiny brush strokes applied in layers are replaced with large solid blocks of color, more geometric shapes, and real-life subjects, as you can see in Gauguin’s work below.
The Artist, Paul Gauguin:
Paul Gauguin (Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin) was a French Post-Impressionist painter, sculptor, and ceramist, born June 7, 1848. He was born in Paris, to Clovis Gauguin, a liberal news writer, and Aline Chazal, during the revolutionary upheavals. Once authorities suppressed his newspaper, Paul’s father decided to flee France for Peru in the hopes of starting another newspaper in his wife’s native country. He died of a heart attack in route, leaving Aline widowed with two children: Paul (18 months) and his sister, Marie (2 ½ years).
But unlike most widows, Aline’s wealthy great-uncle opened his home to them. Here, Paul lived a lavish lifestyle, complete with servants to wait on him, until 1854 when the country fell into conflict and his family fell out of prominent governmental roles. His mother returned to Paris to work as a dressmaker, leaving Paul in Orléans with his grandfather. Paul attended a distinguished Catholic boarding school, before entering a Naval preparatory school at the age of 14. Later, he served two years as a merchant marine in the French navy. He was in India when he received a letter that his mother had passed.
Paul’s Wife and Children:
In 1871, at the age of 23, Paul returned to Paris and became a successful businessman working as a stockbroker. Here he began dabbling in art dealing, as well. In 1873, he married Mette-Sophie Gad and over ten years they had five children. He moved his family to Denmark to start another business (which failed, due to his inability to speak the language). After 11 years, his marriage crumbled, as well, when Paul was forced back to painting full-time. By 1888, he abandoned his wife and children and returned to Paris. He lived in an area of Paris where Impressionistic painters of that time kept the local cafés bustling. Here he became friends with artists like Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne, among others, by joining an art colony.
Paul in Panama:
In 1887, Paul travels to Panama in search of a lifestyle free of westernism. He longed to live “on fish and fruit and for nothing…without anxiety for the day or for the morrow.” Instead, by the time he reached the shoreline, he had no money for land and had to work as a laborer on the Panama Canal, digging from sunup to sundown. He complained of being eaten up by the mosquitoes. Once it was evident land was out of his grasp and after recovering from a deadly illness, he left Panama. He disembarked on the island of Martinique but the summer heat and the summer rains flooded his hut often, and here, he suffered from dysentery and marsh fever. Even so, he created 10 pieces of art that would start his love for painting indigenous peoples, for which he became known.
Paul in Southern France:
In 1888, Gauguin agreed to live with Vincent Van Gogh for nine weeks for them to paint together at Vincent’s Yellow House in the South of France, as per an arrangement made by Theo, Van Gogh’s brother. Their fiery arguments led to the infamous story of Van Gogh waving a razor before swiping off his own ear, although some historians believe (after reading the police documents), that Gauguin performed the amputation and convinced Van Gogh to cover for him to save his reputation as an artist. Gauguin fled while Van Gogh went to the hospital, and they never saw each other again. The truth remains unclear.
Paul in Tahiti:
On April 1, 1891, Gauguin set sail for Tahiti for his next artistic adventure, determined he would leave behind everything that he deemed as artificial and conventional in the western world. He wanted to live as a savage, but promised his wife and kids, whom he saw before sailing, that he would return rich, and they would be able to start fresh. It was the last time he would see his family.
His artwork created in Tahiti are the paintings he is best known for. In one afternoon, he took a native wife named Teha’amana who was only 13 years old. She became pregnant with their child soon after. She appears repeatedly in the paintings from Tahiti. At times, his paintings were deemed by polite society as vulgar and too sensual for that day, but these paintings seem to have spurred not only controversy, but interest in the savage lifestyle, and that of this artist who ranted about the European missionaries destroying the savage culture in Tahiti.
Paul in Paris:
Paul returned to Paris, abandoning his native wife and child in July of 1893; he would never see them again. Upon his return to France, he continued painting Tahitian subjects and building his popularity as an artist. He set up an apartment and began hosting a public salon dressed in Polynesian costume and was openly affectionate towards a teen girl who was half Indian/half Malayan. It wasn’t long before Paul felt ostracized by society as attacks appeared in issues of Mercure de France, a French Gazette at the time; the isolation felt unbearable. He pulled up stakes again to return to Tahiti on June 28,1895.
Paul’s Return to Tahiti:
For a year, he carved sculptures, before returning to the provocative nude paintings he’d become known for. His health declined at this time with several ailments, one was a shattered ankle from an accident in France that refused to heal, and another, advanced syphilis. His debt increased as his health declined, pushing him to complete what he believed would be the final masterpiece of his life, titled: “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? In a letter, he admitted he had attempted suicide after completing this painting but failed. After this painting sold, Gauguin again lived comfortably and started a relationship with another teenage girl, named Pau’ura. They had two children, one of which died in infancy.
Wanting a more primitive society than the one that was being influenced by missionaries and western ideology, Gauguin settled in Atuona on the Island of Hiva-Oa in 1901. It is here crowds gathered for all night partying at his home, which angered the local bishop. When missionary school funding waivered, many teenage daughters withdrew and one of those became Paul’s next romantic interest. Her name was Vaeoho. She was 14 years old. At this time, Gauguin’s sores needed daily dressing. In July of 1902 Vaeoho returned to her family to give birth to their child and she never returned.
Gauguin’s pain intensified, and he resorted to using morphine to cope. He died suddenly on the morning of May 8, 1903.
What Can Christian Creatives Learn from Paul Gauguin’s Life?
It’s unfortunate he abandoned his wife and children to pursue a savage lifestyle void of religion, and free from guilt or ramifications. The result of his choices left discards of an abandoned family, damaged teenage girls, illegitimate children, and a spread of syphilis from his very loins. Nowhere in his story do we see retribution or conviction. Meanwhile, once society overcame the vulgarity of his art, they began to evolve and accept it as progressive, provocative, and mysterious in nature. Many of his paintings illustrated nudes of his teenage conquests.
As Solomon writes, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Today, we continue to erase away the line of moral boundaries and move it further into the dark grass for the sake of art. Vulgar lyrics that once stung our senses are spun into artistic voices of “truth.” Before long, we’re tapping our steering wheels in beat with the violent dehumanizing messages; not only desensitizing us, but also the next generation in the back seat. Images once thought pornographic are now deemed as artistic freedom.
If we can learn anything from Gauguin’s sad story it’s this, to be careful whom we deem true artists…for whom do we respect? Should we support all artists for art’s sake? Would we revere paintings of naked teenagers by Jeffrey Epstein?
God forbid.
Something to think about…
Tammy Carter Adams is the founder of The Hallelujah House and host of THH podcast. She lives in Central Florida with her husband Jay and they have four children. When she’s not creating content, Tammy enjoys writing, painting and interior design projects. If you’d like to become a guest on a future faith podcast please email: tammycarteradams@thehallelujahhouse.com.
Credits: Wikipedia photos and content.
