Paul Gauguin | Color Quotes

• "Color which, like music, is a matter of vibrations, reaches what is most general and therefore most indefinable in nature: its inner power…"

▻ "Il colore che, come la musica, è una questione di vibrazioni, raggiunge ciò che è più generale e quindi più indefinibile in natura: la sua forza interiore".

• "Oh yes! He loved yellow, did good Vincent... When the two of us were together in Arles, both of us insane, and constantly at war over beautiful colors, I adored red; where could I find a perfect vermilion?"

▻ "Oh! sì, l'ha amato il giallo, i raggi del sole che gli riscaldavano l'anima, il buon Vincent, questo pittore d'Olanda che odiava la nebbia. Era il suo bisogno disperato di caldo.

Insieme, ad Arles, accaniti nella lotta, ossessionati dalle meraviglie del colore, io adoravo il rosso. Cercavo un vermiglio perfetto: dove trovarlo"? - da Paul Gauguin, Gli scritti di un selvaggio, 1894.

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (7 June 1848 - 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of color and Synthetist style that were distinct from Impressionism.

Toward the end of his life, he spent ten years in French Polynesia. The paintings from this time depict people or landscapes from that region.

His work was influential on the French avant-garde and many modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, and he is well known for his relationship with Vincent and Theo van Gogh.

Gauguin's art became popular after his death, partially from the efforts of dealer Ambroise Vollard, who organized exhibitions of his work late in his career and assisted in organizing two important posthumous exhibitions in Paris.

Gauguin was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer. His expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the Cloisonnist style, paved the way for Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. He was also an influential proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms.

• "It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block".

▻ "È l'occhio dell'ignoranza che assegna un colore fisso ed immutabile ad ogni oggetto; fate attenzione a questo ostacolo".

• "If you see a tree as blue, then make it blue".

▻ "Come vedete quest'albero? Verde? E allora mettete del verde, il più bel verde della vostra tavolozza. E quest'ombra? Piuttosto blu? Non temete allora di dipingerla col blu più intenso possibile.".

• "Color! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams".

▻ "Il colore! Che linguaggio profondo e misterioso linguaggio dei sogni".