Editing Paul Gauguin (section)

=== Return to France ===
[[File:Gauguin by Mucha.jpg|thumb|upright|right|Gauguin, c. 1895, playing a [[Pump organ|harmonium]] at [[Alphonse Mucha]]'s studio at rue de la Grande-Chaumière, Paris (Mucha photo)]]
[[File:Paul Gauguin, 1894, Oviri (Sauvage), partially glazed stoneware, 75 x 19 x 27 cm, Musée d'Orsay.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|Paul Gauguin, 1894, ''[[Oviri|Oviri (Sauvage)]]'', partially glazed stoneware, 75 x 19 x 27&nbsp;cm, [[Musée d'Orsay]], Paris. "The theme of ''Oviri'' is death, savagery, wildness. Oviri stands over a dead she-wolf, while crushing the life out of her cub." Perhaps, as Gauguin wrote to [[Odilon Redon]], it is a matter of "not death in life but life in death".<ref name= Orsay>{{cite web|title=Oviri|url=http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/sculpture/commentaire_id/oviri-11308.html?cHash=f88883513c|website=musee-orsay.fr|publisher=[[Musée d'Orsay]]}}</ref><ref>Dario Gamboni, {{Google books|v7fgpBJM_nQC|Potential Images: Ambiguity and Indeterminacy in Modern Art|page= 96|plainurl=}}</ref>]]
[[File:Paul Gauguin 113.jpg|thumb|''[[Mahana no atua]]'' (Day of the God), 1894]]

In August 1893, Gauguin returned to France, where he continued to execute paintings on Tahitian subjects such as ''[[Mahana no atua]] (Day of the God)'' and ''[[Nave nave moe]] (Sacred spring, sweet dreams)''.<ref name="Examination">The Art Institute of Chicago (2005). "Examination: Gauguin's Day of the God (Mahana No Atua)". Art Explorer. Retrieved 10 April 2012.</ref>{{sfn|Thomson|1987|p=181}} An exhibition at the [[Paul Durand-Ruel|Durand-Ruel]] gallery in November 1894 was a moderate success, selling at quite elevated prices 11 of the 40 paintings exhibited. He set up an apartment at 6 rue Vercingétorix, on the edge of the [[Montparnasse]] district frequented by artists, and began to conduct a weekly ''[[Salon (gathering)|salon]]''. He affected an exotic ''persona'', dressing in Polynesian costume, and conducted a public affair with a young woman still in her teens, "half Indian, half Malayan", known as {{Interlanguage link|Annah the Javanese|ca|3=Annah la javanesa}}.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=197–199}}<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Gauguin's Faithless Javanese|magazine=[[Life (magazine)|LIFE]]|date=11 September 1950|url={{Google books|9U0EAAAAMBAJ|page=112|plainurl=yes}}}}</ref>

Despite the moderate success of his November exhibition, he subsequently lost Durand-Ruel's patronage in circumstances that are not clear. Mathews characterises this as a tragedy for Gauguin's career. Amongst other things he lost the chance of an introduction to the American market.<ref>Mathews p. 200.</ref> The start of 1894 found him preparing woodcuts using an experimental technique for his proposed travelogue ''Noa Noa''. He returned to Pont-Aven for the summer. In February 1895 he attempted an auction of his paintings at Hôtel Drouot in Paris, similar to the one of 1891, but this was not a success. The dealer [[Ambroise Vollard]], however, showed his paintings at his gallery in March 1895, but they unfortunately did not come to terms at that date.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|p=208}}

He submitted a large ceramic sculpture he called ''[[Oviri]]'' he had fired the previous winter to the [[Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts]] 1895 ''salon'' opening in April.<ref name="Orsay" /> There are conflicting versions of how it was received: his biographer and ''Noa Noa'' collaborator, the [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolist]] poet {{Interlanguage link|Charles Morice (writer)|fr|3=Charles Morice|lt=Charles Morice}}, contended (1920) that the work was "literally expelled" from the exhibition, while Vollard said (1937) that the work was admitted only when Chaplet threatened to withdraw all his own work.<ref>Frèches-Thory p. 372, n. 19.</ref> In any case, Gauguin took the opportunity to increase his public exposure by writing an outraged letter on the state of modern ceramics to ''[[Le Soir]]''.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=208–209}}

By this time it had become clear that he and his wife Mette were irrevocably separated. Although there had been hopes of a reconciliation, they had quickly quarrelled over money matters and neither visited the other. Gauguin initially refused to share any part of a 13,000-franc inheritance from his uncle Isidore which he had come into shortly after returning. Mette was eventually gifted 1,500 francs, but she was outraged and from that point on kept in contact with him only through Schuffenecker{{mdash}}doubly galling for Gauguin, as his friend thus knew the true extent of his betrayal.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=194, 210}}{{sfn|Thomson|1987|p=182}}

By mid 1895 attempts to raise funds for Gauguin's return to Tahiti had failed, and he began accepting charity from friends.  In June 1895 [[Eugène Carrière]] arranged a cheap passage back to Tahiti, and Gauguin never saw Europe again.<ref>Wright pp. 194-8.</ref>
<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px" class="center">
File:Gauguin, Paul - Sacred Spring, Sweet Dreams (Nave nave moe).jpg|''[[Nave nave moe]] (Sacred spring, sweet dreams)'', 1894, [[Hermitage Museum]]
File:Paul Gauguin 004.jpg|''Annah the Javanese'', (1893), [[Private collection]]<ref>{{Google books|8vxXAQAAQBAJ|Dictionary of Artists' Models|page=47}}</ref>
File:Annah la Javanaise by Mucha.jpg|Paul Gauguin, [[Alfons Mucha]], [[Luděk Marold]], and Annah the Javanese at Mucha's studio, 1893
File:Paul Gauguin - Nave Nave Fenua from the Noa Noa Series - Google Art Project.jpg|''Nave Nave Fenua (Delightful Land)'', woodcut in ''Noa Noa'' series, 1894, [[Art Gallery of Ontario]]
</gallery>