Paul Gauguin Quotes

At the age of ten, twenty, a hundred, very young, a little older, and very old, an artist is always an artist. Isn't he better at some times, some moments, than at others? Never impeccable, since he is a living, human being?

Art is either revolution or plagiarism

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.

With this painting, I tried to make everything breathe faith, quiet suffering, religious and primitive style and great nature with its scream.

Nature has mysterious infinities and imaginative power. It is always varying the productions it offers to us. The artist himself is one of nature's means.

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.

Soyez amoureuses vous serez heureuses

Original: Votre œil bleu du nord regardait attentivement les tableaux pendus aux murs. J’eus comme le pressentiment d’une révolte : tout un choc entre votre civilisation et ma barbarie. Civilisation dont vous souffrez. Barbarie qui est pour moi un rajeunissement.

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?

D’où venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Don't over finish your work. There is value to done.

I love Brittany; I find wildness and primitiveness there. When my wooden shoes ring on this granite, I hear the muffled, dull, and powerful tone which I try to achieve in painting.

Je cherche le caractère dans chaque matière. Or le caractère de la céramique de gris est le sentiment du grand feu, et cette figure [sculpture] calcinée dans cet enfer, en exprime je crois assez fortement le caractère.

I look for the character of each medium. The character of stoneware is that of a very hot fire, and this figure [sculpture] that has been scorched in the ovens of hell is I think a strong expression of this character.

A time will come when people will think I am a myth, or rather something the newspapers have made up.