Paul Gauguin Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Paul Gauguin.
Famous Quotes By Paul Gauguin
Literary poetry in a painter is something special, and is neither illustration nor the translation of writing by form. — Paul Gauguin
The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public. — Paul Gauguin
If I did what has already been done, I would be a plagiarist and would consider myself unworthy; so I do something different and people call me a scoundrel. I'd rather be a scoundrel than a plagiarist! — Paul Gauguin
A bit of advice, don't copy nature too closely. Art is an abstraction; as you dream amid nature, extrapolate art from it, and concentrate on what you will create as a result. — Paul Gauguin
No one wants my painting because it is different from other people's peculiar, crazy public that demands the greatest possible degree of originality on the painter's part and yet won't accept him unless his work resembles that of the others! — Paul Gauguin
With practice the craft will come almost of itself, in spite of you and all the more easitly if you think of something besides technique. — Paul Gauguin
Perhaps I have no talent, but all vanity aside - I do not believe that anyone makes an artistic attempt, no matter how small, without having a little - or there are many fools. — Paul Gauguin
The landscape with its violent, pure colours dazzled and blinded me. I was always uncertain ... — Paul Gauguin
I must confess that I too am a woman and that I am always prepared to applaud a woman who is more daring than I, and is equal to a man in fighting for freedom of behavior. — Paul Gauguin
Oh yes! he loved yellow, this good Vincent, this painter from Holland - those glimmers of sunlight rekindled his soul, that abhorred the fog, that needed the warmth. — Paul Gauguin
I'd like to write the way I do my paintings, that is, as fantasy takes me, as the moon dictates. — Paul Gauguin
All the joys - animal and human - of a free life are mine. I have escaped everything that is artificial, conventional, customary. I am entering into the truth, into nature. — Paul Gauguin
I plunged eagerly and passionately into the wilderness, as if in the hope of thus penetrating into the very heart of this Nature, powerful and maternal, there to blend with her living elements. — Paul Gauguin
Machines have come, art has fled, and I am far from thinking photography can help us. — Paul Gauguin
I am a great artist and I know it. It's because of what I am that I have endured so much suffering, so as to pursue my vocation, otherwise I would consider myself a rogue - which is what many people think I am, for that matter. — Paul Gauguin
All the masters have those weak points that are called masterpieces; and besides, they do them as crowd pleasers
to prove that they have the know-how. — Paul Gauguin
The flat sound of my wooden clogs on the cobblestones, deep, hollow and powerful, is the note I seek in my painting. — Paul Gauguin
But I owe something to Vincent, and that is, in the consciousness of having been useful to him, the confirmation of my own original ideas about painting. And also, at difficult moments, the remembrance that one finds others unhappier than oneself. — Paul Gauguin
A hint - don't paint too much direct from nature. Art is an abstraction! study nature then brood on it and treasure the creation which will result, which is the only way to ascend towards God - to create like our Divine Master. — Paul Gauguin
Look closely at the Japanese; they draw admirably and yet in them you will see life outdoors and in the sun without shadows ... — Paul Gauguin
Where do we come from?" "What are we?""Where are we going? — Paul Gauguin
I was aware that on my skill as a painter would depend the physical and moral possession of the model ... — Paul Gauguin
By the combination of lines and colors, under the pretext of some motif taken from nature, I create symphonies and harmonies that represent nothing absolutely real in the ordinary sense of the word but are intended to give rise to thoughts as music does. — Paul Gauguin
Oh yes! He loved yellow, did good Vincent ... When the two of us were together in Arles, both of us insane, and constantly at war over beautiful colors, I adored red; where could I find a perfect vermilion? — Paul Gauguin
Many people say that I don't know how to draw because I don't draw particular forms. When will they understand that execution, drawing and color (in other words, style) must be in harmony with the poem? — Paul Gauguin
I tried to make everything breathe in this painting: faith, quiet suffering, religious and primitive style, and great nature with its scream. — Paul Gauguin
How to re-light the fire the very ashes of which are scattered? — Paul Gauguin
The single most powerful tool for winning a negotiation is the ability to get up and walk away from the table without a deal — Paul Gauguin
Art is either revolution or plagiarism — Paul Gauguin
A time will come when people will think I am a myth, or rather something the newspapers have made up. — Paul Gauguin
In art one is concerned with the condition of the spirit for three quarters of the time; one must therefore care for oneself if he wishes to make something great and lasting. — Paul Gauguin
Oh mysterious world ... I have become better for having understood and having loved thy human soul - a flower which has ceased to bloom and whose fragrance no one henceforth will breathe. — Paul Gauguin
There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite. — Paul Gauguin
Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy requires art. Otherwise, what would become of beauty? — Paul Gauguin
My eyes close and uncomprehendingly see the dream in the infinite space that stretches away, elusive, before me. — Paul Gauguin
Concentrate your strengths against your competitor's relative weaknesses. — Paul Gauguin
How do you see those tree? ... They are yellow. Well then put down yellow. And that shadow is rather blue. So render it with pure ultramarine. Those red leaves? Use vermillion. — Paul Gauguin
However depressed I may be I am not in the habit of giving up a project without having tried everything, even the 'impossible', to gain my end. — Paul Gauguin
Proficiency in art is a contract with your self and the empowerment of your self. Not all of us demand or even desire proficiency, but for those who do it's necessary to temper the influence of groups. And while some artists think history is bunk, the historical evidence is overwhelming: "In my isolation I grow stronger." — Paul Gauguin
It is well for young men to have a model, but let them draw the curtain over it while they are painting. — Paul Gauguin
For Christ's sake, were the mountains blue, then chuck on some blue and don't go telling me that it was a blue a bit like this or like that, it was blue wasn't it? Good - make them blue and that's enough! — Paul Gauguin
The critics can say stupid things and we can enjoy them, if we have the legitimate feeling of superiority - the satisfaction of a duty accomplished. — Paul Gauguin
Soon I'll be old and I've done precious little in this world for lack of time. I am always afraid I'll become senile before I've finished what I've undertaken. — Paul Gauguin
It was so simple to paint things as I saw them; to put without special calculation a red close to a blue. — Paul Gauguin
It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block. — Paul Gauguin
It is useless to advise solitude for everyone; one must be strong enough to endure it and to work alone. — Paul Gauguin
There are tonalities which are noble and others which are vulgar, harmonies which are calm or consoling, and others which are exciting because of their boldness. — Paul Gauguin
Sooner or later people will learn to recognize your worth — Paul Gauguin
If you see a tree as blue, then make it blue. — Paul Gauguin
If instead of a figure you put the shadow only of a person, you have found an original starting point, that strangeness of which you have calculated. — Paul Gauguin
A nude by Degas is chaste. But his women wash in tubs! ... — Paul Gauguin
Solitude is not to be recommended to everyone, for you have to be strong in order to bear it and act alone. — Paul Gauguin
I sit at my door, smoking a cigarette and sipping my absinthe, and I enjoy every day without a care in the world — Paul Gauguin
Take care not to step on the foot of a learned idiot. His bite is incurable. — Paul Gauguin
What still concerns me the most is: am I on the right track, am I making progress, am I making mistakes in art? — Paul Gauguin
In Europe men and women have intercourse because they love each other. In the South Seas they love each other because they have had intercourse. Who is right? — Paul Gauguin
There is no such thing as exaggerated art. I even believe that there is salvation only in extreme. — Paul Gauguin
Life is merely a fraction of a second. An infinitely small amount of time to fulfill our desires, our dreams, our passions. — Paul Gauguin
One's state of mind is three-quarters of what counts, so it has to be carefully nurtured if you want to do something great and lasting. — Paul Gauguin
I have always wanted a mistress who was fat, and I have never found one. To make a fool of me, they are always pregnant. — Paul Gauguin
A critic is someone who meddles with something that is none of his business. — Paul Gauguin
Out in the sun, some painters are lined up. The first is copying nature, the second is copying the first, the third is copying the second ... You see the sequence. — Paul Gauguin
Life is hardly more than a fraction of a second. Such a little time to prepare oneself for eternity! — Paul Gauguin
The public wants to understand and learn in a single day, a single minute, what the artist has spent years learning. — Paul Gauguin
Whatever may happen the sun will rise tomorrow as it rose to-day, beneficent and serene. — Paul Gauguin
In the art of literature there are two contending parties. Those who aim to tell stories that are more or less well thought out, and those who aim at beautiful language, beauty of form. This contest may last a very long time; each side has a fifty-fifty chance. Only the poet can rightfully demand that verse be beautiful and nothing but. — Paul Gauguin
The missionary is no longer a man, a conscience. He is a corpse, in the hands of a confraternity, without family, without love, without any of the sentiments that are dear to us. Emasculated, in a sense, by his vow of chastity, he offers us the distressing spectacle of a man deformed and impotent or engaged in a stupid and useless struggle with the sacred needs of the flesh, a struggle which, seven times out of ten, leads him to sodomy, the gallows, or prison. — Paul Gauguin
Oh mysterious world of all light, thou hast made a light shine within me, and I have grown in admiration of thy antique beauty, which is the immemorial youth of nature. — Paul Gauguin
A young man who is unable to commit a folly is already an old man. — Paul Gauguin
Art is either a plagiarist or a revolutionist. — Paul Gauguin
Moved by an unconsious sentiment born out of solitude and savagery - idle tales of a noughty child who sometimes reflects and who is always a lover of the beautiful - the beauty that is personal - the only beauty that is human. — Paul Gauguin
The cyclone ends. The sun returns; the lofty coconut trees lift up their plumes again; man does likewise. The great anguish is over; joy has returned; the sea smiles like a child. — Paul Gauguin
Lacking many of the essential implements, it irritated me to be reduced to impotence in the face of artistic projects to which I had passionately given myself. — Paul Gauguin
A meter of green is greener than a centimeter. — Paul Gauguin
Beware of luxury! Beware of acquiring the taste and need for it, under the pretext of providing for the morrow ... — Paul Gauguin
And here in my isolation I can grow stronger. Poetry seems to come of itself, without effort, and I need only let myself dream a little while painting to suggest it. — Paul Gauguin
We never really know what stupidity is until we have experimented on ourselves. — Paul Gauguin
Do you know what will soon be the ultimate in truth? - photography, once it begins to reproduce colors, and that won't be long in coming. And yet you want an intelligent man to sweat for months so as to give the illusion he can do something as well as an ingenious little machine can! — Paul Gauguin
Color which, like music, is a matter of vibrations, reaches what is most general and therefore most indefinable in nature: its inner power. — Paul Gauguin
Is there a recipe for making beauty? The schools give recipes, but they do not beget works that make people exclaim: How beautiful that is! — Paul Gauguin
Many excellent cooks are spoilt by going into the arts. — Paul Gauguin
Wherever I go I need a period of incubation so that I may learn the essence of nature, which never wishes to be understood or yield herself. — Paul Gauguin
Thanks to our cinctures and corsets we have succeeded in making an artificial being out of woman. She is an anomaly, and Nature herself, obedient to the laws of heredity, aids us in complicating and enervating her. We carefully keep her in a state of nervous weakness and muscular inferiority, and in guarding her from fatigue, we take away from her possibilities of development. Thus modeled on a bizarre ideal of slenderness to which, strangely enough, we continue to adhere, our women have nothing in common with us, and this, perhaps, may not be without grave moral and social disadvantages. — Paul Gauguin
There are two sorts of beauty; one is the result of instinct, the other of study. A combination of the two, with the resulting modifications, brings with it a very complicated richness, which the art critic ought to try to discover. — Paul Gauguin
Why work? The gods are there to lavish upon the faithful the good gifts of nature. — Paul Gauguin
Go on working, freely and furiously, and you will make progress. — Paul Gauguin