Paul Gauguin
Artist
The artist Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist painter. Initially schooled in Impressionism, Gauguin broke away from its focus with the everyday world, pioneering a new style of painting broadly referred to as Symbolism. His bold experimentation with colouring led directly to the Synthesist style of modern art while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the colonist style, paved the way to Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. Gauguin's highly original paintings profoundly influenced modern art of the twentieth century. He eventually turned his back on the West, travelling to Panama and Martinique and settling in Tahiti for several years. He died on the remote Marchese Islands.
