To baffle the public . . .

Today is the birthday of Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (June 7, 1848 – May 8, 1903), painter and sculptor.


Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
Paul Gauguin, 1897–1898
oil on canvas, 139.1 × 374.6 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
"Paul Gauguin was a financially successful stockbroker and self-taught amateur artist when he began collecting works by the impressionists in the 1870s. Inspired by their example, he took up the study of painting under Camille Pissarro. Pissarro and Edgar Degas arranged for him to show his early painting efforts in the fourth impressionist exhibition in 1879 (as well as the annual impressionist exhibitions held through 1882). In 1882, after a stock market crash and recession rendered him unemployed and broke, Gauguin decided to abandon the business world to pursue life as an artist full-time." direct quote source (1)

He is considered a leading Post-Impressionist painter.

"I shut my eyes in order to see. "
- 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

"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