Guys Like Gauguin: A Legacy of Colonialism

Abstract

Paul Gauguin’s body of work lives at the intersection of orientalist and primitivist myth. He had a conscious hand in creating the mythology surrounding his work; his imagination was the source for the fiction of both his own life events and depictions of non-Western cultures. Separating who Gauguin is as an artist from who Gauguin was as a man proves a difficult task. A large body of work exists dedicated to documenting and understanding Gauguin’s biography, investigating evidence that may or may not shed light on the truest or most honest version of Paul Gauguin.