1. Paul Gauguin
Today’s artist is Paul Gauguin. Our learning objective is going to be for you to tell me 3 ways that Paul’s early life influenced his art. After I’m done telling you about Gauguin, I’ll ask you to tell me if you can think of 3 ways. So listen for that as we talk about him! Paul Gauguin was born in Paris in June of That’s over 160 years ago. He had one sister named Mari. When he was only 3, his parents decided to move to Limå, Peru because a new leader had just come into power in France, and they must not have agreed with the way he wanted to run the country. Paul’s dad died on the way to Peru, so they ended up living with rich relatives for 6 years before returning to France.

2. Early Life in Peru
This is a picture of part of Peru. Can anyone tell what kind of habitat this might be? Does this picture help? It was tropical rainforest. There are parts of Peru that are city, too, but also there is this beautiful rainforest, which was very different from the environment in France where Gauguin was born and where he’d return to after Peru.

3. Sailor and World Traveler
When they came back, Paul became a sailor. He was an apprentice for a while, then sailed in the French Navy. He even made a trip around the world on a boat! I’m sure he got to see even more exciting places on his trips. He also learned to box and to sword fight. He was developing quite the imagination and storing up all kinds of interesting images during all these travels too. That would eventually help him as an artist.

4. Financier and Father of 5!
After that, he went to work as a stock broker (someone who trades stocks and works with money), and he became a successful businessman. He met a woman and got married to Mette Sophie Gad, and they had 5 children. During the time he worked at the stock exchange, he started to draw. One of his fellow stock brokers, a shy clerk named Claude, noticed, and together they entered art school.

5. Impressionist Influences
Pissarro
Gauguin
Cezanne
He was making good money at the stock exchange, and hanging around with impressionist painters of the time, buying their art and being influenced by their style. This is one of Gauguin’s earlier paintings. See how it has some elements of other impressionists you’ve studied, like the painting by Pissarro … and Cezanne? Impressionists use big or little brush strokes to create an idea of a scene, rather than trying to paint what it actually looks like.

6. Simple shapes, bright colors, flat objects
So with his wife and kids living on their own, he worked on his artistic style and broke away from impressionism, coming up with something that he called “synthetic symbolism.” He used very simplified shaped and lines, bright colors, and sort of a flatness to all his objects. This early one still shows some impressionism, but eventually his paintings would look more like this…
The painting at the top was done in the rural countryside of France. Gauguin had become fed up with big city life in Paris and decided to move someplace more peaceful. He liked the unusual outfits the peasants wore and the peaceful countryside. His friends all liked his art quite a bit, but he still wasn’t making any money selling his art.

7. Moved to Tahiti
Eventually, though, even the countryside started to bore him. Maybe he remembered the tropical rainforests of Peru, and he decided to go to an island. He decided to scraped together enough money to go to Tahiti.He worked very hard to put his own special feelings into his artwork. This painting, called “Tahitian Landscape” is pretty realistic…

8. Imaginative Colors
But Gauguin also liked to use his imagination to rearrange nature and create worlds that he dreamed about. You can see he used colors that were completely made up - often painting water or grass in different colors than you’d think, He hoped a person would look at one of his paintings and dream of their own imaginary worlds.

9. So Poor He Painted on Burlap
He was finally happy with the way his art looked, but he was pretty miserable. He was all alone and very poor. He often had to paint on cloth that was used to make sacks for carrying fruits and vegetables. He added wax to his paint to make it thicker so he could paint on these rough surfaces. You can see the rough surface if you look closely at the edges of this painting.

10. Self Portrait
This is a self-portrait Gauguin made in He died by himself 7 years later. He was only 55 years old. Today, his style of painting is recognized as the beginning of modern art.

11. Saw the rainforests and liked that scenery
Influence 1:
Grew up in Peru…
Saw the rainforests and liked that scenery
Influence 2:
Traveled a lot as a young man…
Saw lots of exciting people
and places
Influence 3:
Let’s talk about the learning objective I mentioned at the beginning. Who can think of one of the ways Gaugin’s early life helped him decide to be an artist and to figure out what kind of art he was going to create…
Lost his job as a Stock Broker…
Decided to dedicate his
time to art instead of banking

12. Native scenes
Vibrant colors
Flat shapes

13. Our Project (Tropical scene on burlap)
Our inspiration

14. Step One
Draw a horizon line on your burlap with a marker

15. Step Two
Paint the sky and the water

16. Step Three
Paint some mountains in triangle shapes above the water

17. Step Four
Add a palm tree trunk

18. Step Five
Add leaves at the top of the tree

19. Step Six
Add flowers at the bottom

20. Step Seven
Add a moon and stars

21. Step Eight
Add accents and highlights on your tree trunk, leaves and flowers
Add white last