Gauguin Defines Art

i came across a quote that i felt compelled to share today:
"Art is either plagiarism or revolution." ~ Paul Gauguin, 1848 - 1903
i don't happen to agree with PG that it's one or the other - whenever i create something i don't feel that i'm being derivative or that i'm rebelling against anything - i just play until something appears and then i tinker with it until i'm happy with it - but i don't think he was a very happy person, except perhaps when he was painting or having sex with anyone, so i guess that's just how he saw things back then...

pictured above are:
self-portrait of PG
where do we come from? what are we? where are we going?
the sorcerer of hiva oa


here's a little history of Gauguin, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Paul Gauguin was born in Paris, France to journalist Clovis Gauguin and Alina Maria Chazal, daughter of the half-Peruvian proto-socialist leader Flora Tristan, a feminist precursor. In 1851 the family left Paris for Peru, motivated by the political climate of the period. Clovis died on the voyage, leaving three-year old Paul, his mother and sister to fend for themselves. They lived for four years in Lima, Peru with Paul's uncle and his family. The imagery of Peru would later influence Gauguin in his art.

At the age of seven, Gauguin and his family returned to France. They moved to Orléans, France to live with his grandfather. He soon learned French and excelled in his studies. At seventeen, Gauguin signed on as a pilot's assistant in the merchant marine to fulfill his required military service. Three years later, he joined the French navy where he stayed for two years. In 1871, Gauguin returned to Paris where he secured a job as a stockbroker. In 1873, he married a Danish woman, Mette-Sophie Gad. They had five children over the next ten years.

I Raro te Oviri, 1891, Dallas Museum of Art

By 1884 Gauguin had moved with his family to Copenhagen, where he pursued a business career as a stockbroker. Driven to paint full-time, he returned to Paris in 1885, leaving his family in Denmark. Without adequate subsistence, his wife (Mette Sophie Gadd) and their five children returned to her family. Gauguin outlived two of his children. Like his friend Vincent van Gogh, with whom in 1888 he spent nine weeks painting in Arles, Paul Gauguin experienced bouts of depression and at one time attempted suicide. He made several attempts to find a tropical paradise where he could 'live on fish and fruit' and paint in his increasingly primitive style, including short stays in Martinique and as a labourer on the Panama Canal construction; however, he was dismissed from his job after only two weeks. In 1891, Gauguin, frustrated by lack of recognition at home and financially destitute, sailed to the tropics to escape European civilization and "everything that is artificial and conventional".^[3] His time there, particularly in Tahiti and the Marquesas, was the subject of much interest both then and in modern times due to his alleged sexual exploits.^[4] He was known to have had trysts with several peripubescent native girls, some of whom appear as subjects of his paintings.^[5]

In 1903, due to a problem with the church and the government, he was sentenced to three months in prison and fined. At that time he was being supported by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard^[6] He died of syphilis before he could start the prison sentence. His body had been weakened by alcohol and a dissipated life. He was 54 years old.

Gauguin died on 8 May 1903 and is buried in Calvary Cemetery (Cimetière Calvaire), Atuona, Hiva ‘Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia.

in other news: (newer edited version 2/01/11)
new england has turned into a bonafide winter wonderland, folks - my husband says this is the most snow he's seen here in 20 years - everyone's digging out today but there's a parking ban for the entire town until tomorrow afternoon to give the plows time to get things plowed - only there's no place to put the new snow except on top of all the old snow!

anyway, snow snow snow - what's all this talk about snow - we're warm-ish and dry and still have power, so i feel pretty good about all that

more soon - happy snow - i mean, happy january! TJ