Gauguin: Colour Library

Phaidon Colour Library

by Kathleen Adler, Alan Bowness

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was one of the most formidable artists of the late nineteenth century, and one whose work was to have a profound influence on the development of art in the twentieth century. He began as an Impressionist, but went on to develop a more two-dimensional, richly-coloured style in his constant search for a ‘lost paradise’ untouched by nineteenth-century civilization. Gauguin’s romantic and tragic life story is mirrored in the works in this outstanding anthology. Included are 48 full-page colour plates, not only of his best known, beautiful , atmospheric paintings of Tahiti in which Gauguin attempted to reconstruct the perfect life which he had failed to find in reality, but also of many powerful works which reflect the artist’s contact with other early modern masters – Degas, Van Gogh, Cézanne.

Art historian Lesley Stevenson has written an informative, clear commentary to accompany each colour plate.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Mena K]

Short and informative


In one of his last letters to de Monfried Gauguin wrote: 'You have known for a long the right to dare everything. My capacities
time what I wanted to establish : . . . have not led to any great result, but at least the machine is in motion. The public owes me nothing, since my pictorial work is only relatively good, but the painters who, today, are profiting from this freedom, do owe me something.'

[JW van der Merwe]

It is a very short biography and the book mostly focusing on photos of the actual paintings. Nevertheless the biography is somewhat researched with a good ending i.e. the fact that he liberated art from the classical and even the impressionists way of painting. When I consider Picasso - some of his early paintings look like the paintings of Gauguin. Gauguin's contribution to art is enormous.