The Life and Work of Artist, Paul Gauguin :: Art Essays

The Life and Work of Artist, Paul Gauguin Somerset Maughm's A Moon and Sixpence is about a man, Charles Strickland, who gives up his good life, including a wife and two children and a secure job, to seek a life as a painter. The character Charles Strickland and the events surrounding his life are loosely based on the real painter Paul Gauguin. Because I found the events of Strickland's life so riveting, I felt compelled to discover more about the real person Strickland was based on. Paul Gauguin himself was an extraordinary man who painted in the late 19th century. Webmuseum, Paris describes Gauguin as "one of the leading French painters of the Postimpressionist period, whose development of a conceptual method of representation was a decisive step for 20th century art." However, the events in his life are what makes Gauguin's story so remarkable. The first part of Gauguin's life was uneventful and played no major part in formulating his desire to paint. Gauguin was born in Paris in 1848. He spent the first year of his life there, but in 1849, because of his father's political activities, his family was forced into exile. He spent his childhood growing up in Lima, Peru. In 1867, after his mother died, Gauguin was sent to live with Gustave Arosa back in France. It is during this time that he started collecting impressionist art and he himself started painting. Gauguin became a wealthy stockbroker, married, and had five children. However, with the financial crash of 1882, he decided to quit his job entirely and paint full time. It was during this time that he severed ties with his wife Mette when she went back to her native land of Denmark taking their children with her. Many people cannot grasp the concept that a man who had such a successful happy life would give it all up to become an impoverished painter. Yet Gauguin believed so much in what he was doing that he persisted on giving up the pleasures of his former life and chose to live instead a life of poverty. In this life of poverty, though, he was able to paint. Upon making this life changing decision Gauguin moved around France, spending brief periods of time in Rouen and Pont Avon, looking for work.