Map Analysis Reveals the Influence of Gauguin’s Travels and Childhood Experience on His Art
Although underappreciated during his life time, Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin is now one of the most recognized post-Impressionist artist. His avant-garde exploration with color was indispensable to the development of Primitivism and Fauvism and had powerful influence on generations of artist, including Pablo Picasso. However, perhaps more enthralling than his art, are his life stories and travels to remote islands in the Pacific Ocean, which have inspired William Somerset Maugham’s famous novel The Moon and Sixpence and Nobel-winning writer Mario Vargaas Llosa’s The Way to Paradise, as well as a number of operas and films.
It is widely accepted that his best works were inspired by and produced during his stay on these islands (Stuckey, 1988). As such, when describing the life of Gauguin, art historians and critics would make reference to his travels, often in the form of a chronology (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. A section of Gauguin’s Paradise Lost featuring some of the Gauguin’s life events and travels (Anderson, 1971)
However, such descriptions, although clear, lack in its ability to convey geological relations. While the names of cities and islands may be familiar to many, not everyone is familiar with geography enough to pinpoint the exact locations of such places, let alone picturing their relative positions. As such, a map summarizing the travels of Paul Gauguin was created using Google map for a greater understanding of his travels and why he chose these particular locations. Although simple and in non-exhaustive of the intricate details of his life, this map complements existing studies of Gauguin and highlight two important of ideas. Firstly, even though Gauguin worked at a stockbroker for a length of his life, he travelled extensively both before and after he became a full time artist and was deeply influenced by such travels in his art-making. Secondly, his life and career as an artist, albeit turbulent, were predetermined by his early childhood experience and a lifetime longing to return to a tropical nature filled with the brilliant sunlight and a rich extravagance of colors.
Firstly, in line with studies by many historians and his own remarks, Gauguin’s life and art were defined by his extensive travels (Anderson, 1971). As seen in the map above, born in Paris in 1848, Gauguin spent his early childhood in Peru. During the Peruvian revolutions in 1855, the family moved back to France. After attending school and working as a merchant marine, Gauguin settled down in Paris in 1873 and worked as a stockbroker for around a decade, after which he moved to Rouen, and then Copenhagen. He also started to paint during the 1870s and gradually decided to become a full time artist. At the age of 35, Gauguin became fully invested in art and travelled to and stayed at a number of tropical islands including Tahiti. His visits to these islands brought unprecedented changes to the choice of subject matter and artistic style of his artworks. Prior to his visit to Panama and Martinique in 1886 and 1887, his paintings were similar to the Impressionist paintings at that time in Europe, featuring natural sceneries and still life with haphazard brushstrokes and somber colors (Fig. 2 and 3, also included in the map). However, after 1887, his paintings became decidedly different. As seen in Fig. 4 and 5, which are paintings also included in the map, it is evident that Gauguin became immensely interested in the natural sceneries and people of tropical islands after his visits to the Tropics. His use of colors became more vibrant and saturated, as seen under the tropical sunlight. He also tried to convey a sense of rawness by subscribing to the use of dark bold outlines to separate blocks of pure colors, a style termed Cloisonnism. Of course, over the years, his style evolved and refined further, yet the tropical subject matters were to become recurring motifs in his art and this experimental, primitive style is now the hallmark of his paintings.
Fig. 4. Tahitian Women on the Beach (Oil on Canvas, 1891)
Fig. 2. The Seine at Pont de Drenelle (Oil on Canvas, 1875)
Fig. 3. Vase of Flowers (Oil on Canvas, 1880)
Fig. 5. Woman holding a fruit (Oil on Canvas, 1892)
Secondly, despite the popular perception of Gauguin as an unremarkable businessman who suddenly turned his comfortable bourgeois life away to become a painter of exotic islands, this map reveals that much of Gauguin’s choice of subject matter were predetermined by his childhood experience in Peru. In his earliest years of cognitive awareness, Gauguin enjoyed a privileged life in Peru, one that was immersed in colorful tropical vegetation and sceneries and a diverse racial mixture of Indian, black and Chinese. Born with a remarkable visual memory, Gauguin remembered his life there vividly and these memories continued to haunt him while he was living in the “grey, miserable, money-scraping existence of provincial France” (Bowness, 1919). Painters are predictable organisms that are drawn irresistibly to light and colors, but the source of inspiration to Gauguin was more specific. Throughout his life, he longed to return to the tropical paradise that is deeply embedded in his memory. Often he had to leave the tropical islands for his connections, art exhibitions in Europe, but always had he returned. Gauguin was not the only artist attracted exotic cultures, but he was unique in a way that he saw himself as returning to “a land of naturalness and simplicity where he felt belonged and would stay” (Anderson, 1971), while other artists were visitors, who would leave with the memories. This map captures an evident pattern of his travels. As a full-time artist free of the burden of a family, Gauguin travelled to many places, all of which are similar to Peru and in many ways, including weather and culture, resembled his idea of a lost tropical paradise. As such, it is evident that many of his choices of subject matter in art were heavily influenced by his early childhood experience.
With all these in mind, the advantages of using a map analysis to study the extensive travels of an individual are undeniable given a map’s ability to capture the locations accurately and help viewers to interpret the geographical relations between locations. Such elements are important to our understanding of the bodies of work of artists like Gauguin, whose travels are defining moments of his art.
Explore More (Reference)
Anderson, W., Gauguin, P., & Klein, B. (1971). Gauguin's paradise lost (1st ed.). New York: Viking Press.
Bowness, A. (1971). Gauguin. Phaidon Press Limited.
Stuckey, C.& Zegers, P. (1988). "The First Tahitian Years". The Art of Paul Gauguin