Paul Gauguin
Painter, Sculptor
1848 – 1903
 Born on June 7, 1848 in Paris,
france
 Mother was peruvian, family
lived Peru for 4 years
 Family returns to France when
he is 7
 Serves in the Merchant
Marine, then the French Navy
 Returns to Paris and becomes
a Stockbroker
 Marries a danish woman and
they have 5 children
 They live in Copenhagen
where he is a stockbroker
 Paints in his free time – buys
art in galleries and makes
friends with artists
Portrait of Madame
Gauguin (1880)
 Decides he wants to
paint full time – leaves
his family in
Copenhagen and goes
back to Paris
 His early work is in the
impressionist style
which is very popular at
that time
 He is not very
successful at his art, he
is poor
 Leaves France to find a
simpler life on a tropical
island
Aline Gauguin
Brothers (1883)
Visits his friend
Vincent vanGogh
in Arles, France
where they both
paint
They quarrel, with
van Gogh
famously cutting
off part of his
own ear
Gauguin leaves
france and never
sees van Gogh
again
Night Café at Arles (1888)
Decides he
doesn’t like
impressionism,
prefers native art
of africa and asia
because it has
more meaning
(symbolism)
He paints flat
areas of color and
bold outlines
He lives in Tahiti
and paints images
of Polynesian life
The Siesta (1892)
Tahitian women on the beach (1891)
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When do you get married? (1892)
His art is in the Primitivist
style- exaggerated body
proportions, animal
symbolism, geometric
designs and bold
contrasting colors
Gauguin is the first artist
of his time to become
successful with this style
(so different from the
popular impressionism)
His work influences other
painters, especially Pablo
Picasso
Gauguin spent the remainder of his life painting and living
in the Marquesas Islands, a very remote, jungle-like
place in French Polynesia (close to Tahiti)
Gauguin’s house, Atuona,
Marquesas Islands
Gauguin lived
alone in the
jungle, where
one day his houseboy arrived to
find him dead, with a smile on his
face. He was 54 years old (1903).
He is buried among the natives on
the island.
Gauguin’s grave
Georges-Pierre Seurat
Painter
1859 – 1891
 Born on December 2, 1859 in
Paris, france
 Wealthy family
 Studies art at the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts
 Devotes himself first to
mastering the art of black and
white drawing
Bathers at Asniéres (1884)
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His first major painting, bathers at Asniéres, is rejected by the Paris
salon (the salon was a huge annual exhibition where art was judged
before it could be shown, it decided what art and which artists were “in”)
In response, he joins other artists in forming the Société
des Artistes Indépendants
 Scientists of this time were
writing about theories of color
and how the eye sees things.
They discover that when seen
from a distance, two differently
colored dots seem to blend
into a third color. Painters jump
on this idea and start painting
with small colorful dots placed
close together rather than solid
colored strokes of pre-mixed
paint
 This is called Pointillism
Seurat believed that the emotion
of happiness could be shown
through bright, warm colors and
the use of lines directed upward.
Calm is shown by balancing light
and dark, warm and cold colors
and lines that are horizontal
(sideways). Sadness is shown by
using dark colors and lines that
point down.
Eiffel Tower (1889)
QuickTime™ and a
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In the summer of 1884, Seurat
began work on his most famous
painting “Sunday afternoon on the
Island of La Grande Jatte”.
It was a huge 10-foot-wide
painting and it took him
two years to paint. The original
painting now lives at the Art
Institute of Chicago
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-86)
While in the midst
of working on new a
painting called “the
Circus”, he died
suddenly of an illness in
Paris on March 29 1891.
He was 31 years old.
The Circus (1891)