Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter known for expressive color, energetic brushwork, and a highly visible paint surface.
Painter
Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin was a French Post-Impressionist painter known for bold flat colors, simplified forms, and paintings made in Brittany and French Polynesia.
Paul Gauguin quick facts
Review Gauguin's Post-Impressionist career, bold use of color, subjects from Brittany and French Polynesia, and documented painting materials.
| Full name | Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin |
|---|---|
| Born | June 7, 1848 · Paris, France |
| Died | May 8, 1903 · Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands |
| Nationality | French |
| Movements | Post-Impressionism · Symbolism · Synthetism |
| Paint types | Oil paint · Watercolor · Gouache |
| Other media | Wood carving, ceramics, prints, and drawing |
| Other materials | — |
| Painting surfaces | Canvas · Wood · Paper |
| Painting methods | Simplified contours and flat oil color areas; watercolor and gouache layered with drawing media on paper |
| Common subjects | Breton landscapes and religious subjects, portraits, still lifes, and scenes depicting people and places in French Polynesia |
| Notable works | Vision after the Sermon, The Yellow Christ, and Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? |
Sources: The Met: Gauguin exhibition, The Met: Tahitian Landscape, oil on canvas, The Met: Three Tahitian Women, oil on wood, The Met: The Artist's Portfolio, watercolor and gouache, National Gallery of Art: Nave Nave Fenua, gouache on paper.
Paint types used by Paul Gauguin
Records document Paul Gauguin's use of oil, watercolor, and gouache; examples below connect each medium to named works and explain its visual role.
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Oil paint
Gauguin's Tahitian Landscape (1892), oil on canvas, simplifies a scene of tropical greenery, small figures, and a hut into large areas of color. His Three Tahitian Women (1896) is oil on wood rather than canvas; the compact panel shows how his flattened forms and emphatic contours translated to a different support.
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Watercolor paint
After returning to Brittany, Gauguin decorated The Artist's Portfolio, Pont Aven (1894) with watercolor scenes of local life and landscape. The Met identifies watercolor alongside gouache, graphite, and charcoal on heavy gray paper sewn into the leather portfolio; it is a decorated object and group of drawings, not an oil painting.
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Gouache paint
The portfolio's inside covers also contain gouache. In Nave Nave Fenua (probably 1894), Gauguin used gouache and India ink on dark tan paper, combining opaque color with drawn marks. These works document gouache as part of his graphic practice without suggesting that his major Tahitian oils used the same water-based paint.
Sources: The Met: Tahitian Landscape, oil on canvas, The Met: Three Tahitian Women, oil on wood, The Met: The Artist's Portfolio, Pont Aven, watercolor and gouache, and National Gallery of Art: Nave Nave Fenua, gouache and ink.
Painting surfaces used by Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin's documented works use canvas, wood, paper; examples distinguish the painted surface from its support or object in each cited work.
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Canvas
Gauguin’s paintings, including Tahitian Landscape (1892), are documented on canvas. He used the flexible support for broad areas of tropical color and simplified forms, placing figures and huts within a compressed landscape rather than a naturalistic view. This support is recorded for his Tahitian paintings.
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Wood
Gauguin also painted on wood panels, including Three Tahitian Women (1896), recorded as oil on wood. The compact rigid support carries flattened figures and emphatic contours; it differs from the larger canvas paintings of his Tahitian period. The museum record identifies wood as the support.
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Paper
Paper supports Gauguin’s drawings, watercolors, and selected works on paper. The Met records watercolor and gouache in The Artist’s Portfolio, Pont-Aven, on heavy gray paper sewn into a leather portfolio, showing a portable, bound format distinct from his oil paintings.
Sources: The Met: Gauguin exhibition, The Met: Tahitian Landscape, oil on canvas, The Met: Three Tahitian Women, oil on wood, The Met: The Artist's Portfolio, watercolor and gouache, National Gallery of Art: Nave Nave Fenua, gouache on paper.
Painters similar to Paul Gauguin
Gauguin's simplified forms and expressive color connect him to Post-Impressionist painters who moved beyond naturalistic depiction toward symbolic imagery.
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French Post-Impressionist painter known for still lifes, landscapes, and portraits built through measured brushstrokes and color.
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist known for vivid color, simplified forms, Fauvist painting, and the gouache-painted paper cut-outs of his later career.