Paul Gauguin Quotes

How long have I been here? Henceforward for? I shall not know. For I have been traveling for too long. My bones too weary to remember my age. Hence, how long have I been here? Thou shalt never know.

Paul Gauguin

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You have long known what I have tried to establish: the right to dare everything; yet the difficulty I have had finding enough money to live on has been too great, and my capacities have not produced...

Paul Gauguin

The Writings of a Savage - 1990 Letter to Georges-Daniel de Monfreid - Marquesas Islands, October 1902 An anthology of writing by Gauguin - editor Daniel Guérin, translation Eleanor Levieux.

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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...

Paul Gauguin

The Writings of a Savage - 1990 Letter to Ambroise Vollard - January 1900 An anthology of writing by Gauguin - editor Daniel Guérin, translation Eleanor Levieux.

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My eyes close and uncomprehendingly see the dream in the infinite space that stretches away, elusive, before me.

Paul Gauguin

The Writings of a Savage - 1990 Letter to André Fontainas - March 1899 An anthology of writing by Gauguin - editor Daniel Guérin, translation Eleanor Levieux.

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As I wanted to suggest a luxuriant and untamed type of nature, a tropical sun that sets aglow everything around it, I was obliged to give my figures a suitable setting. It is indeed the outdoor life...

Paul Gauguin

The Writings of a Savage - 1990 Diverse Choses, notebook - 1896-1898 An anthology of writing by Gauguin - editor Daniel Guérin, translation Eleanor Levieux.

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

Paul Gauguin

The Writings of a Savage - 1990 Letter to Georges-Daniel de Monfreid - Tahiti, October 1897 An anthology of writing by Gauguin - editor Daniel Guérin, translation Eleanor Levieux.

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In order to produce something new, you have to return to the original source, to the childhood of mankind.

Paul Gauguin

The Writings of a Savage - 1990 Quoted by Eugène Tardieu - Interview with Paul Gauguin," L'Écho de Paris - 1895 An anthology of writing by Gauguin - editor Daniel Guérin, translation Eleanor Levieux.

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Copying nature - what is that supposed to mean? Follow the masters! But why should one follow them? The only reason they are masters is that they didn't follow anybody!

Paul Gauguin

The Writings of a Savage - 1990 Quoted by Eugène Tardieu, "Interview with Paul Gauguin," L'Écho de Paris, - 1895 An anthology of writing by Gauguin - editor Daniel Guérin, translation Eleanor Levieux.

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In art, there are only two types of people: revolutionaries and plagiarists. And in the end, doesn't the revolutionary's work become official, once the State takes it over?

Paul Gauguin

The Writings of a Savage - 1990 Letter published in Le Soir - 1895 An anthology of writing by Gauguin - editor Daniel Guérin, translation Eleanor Levieux.

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Your Nordic blue eyes looked attentively at the paintings hanging on the walls. I felt stirrings of rebellion: a whole clash between your civilization and my barbarism. Civilization from which you...

Paul Gauguin

The Writings of a Savage - 1990 Letter to August Strindberg - 1895 An anthology of writing by Gauguin - editor Daniel Guérin, translation Eleanor Levieux.

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