The Artist's Diary

When the name Paul Gauguin is mentioned, numerous Oceanian canvases filled with the heat of the sun, featuring robustly built Tahitians and Tahitian women, as if their large, somewhat clumsy feet are embedded in the hot earth, immediately come to mind. Why, then, in this earthly paradise, where the artist's brush revealed not a single dark spot, did his life end in poverty and sorrow? And what led him to this strange, fairy-tale world of the painter, whom we call French, despite the fact that almost his entire creative life was connected with the islands of Oceania? The answers to these questions can be found in the epistolary and literary legacy that remained after the artist's death, which serves as a unique commentary on his vast body of work. These texts are the key to understanding both the complex creative path taken by Gauguin and his personal human fate, full of storms and upheavals. This edition includes selected letters from Gauguin to his wife, to artists (E. Bernard, M. Dene, D. de Montfred, and others), to writers and musicians with whom he had friendly or business relationships; as well as the autobiographical book "Noa Noa" and excerpts from the book "Before and After," written in Oceania shortly before the artist's death.