Editing Paul Gauguin (section)

=== Residence in Tahiti ===
[[File:Agostini - Tahiti, plate page 0080.png|thumb|Jules Agostini's 1896 photograph of Gauguin's house in [[Puna'auia]]. Note the sculpture of a nude woman.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|p=230|loc=Mathews records an anecdote that a Catholic priest asked him to remove a provocative sculpture of a nude woman from his grounds. Not only did Gauguin refuse, but he threatened to sue the priest. In a note (n. 71) Mathews casts doubt on the source of the story because she can't find a record for the priest named as Michel Béchu, but the priest in question would appear to be Léonard Pierre Béchu, originally entered as "Michel" in cathedral records}}]]
Gauguin set out for Tahiti again on 28 June 1895. His return is characterised by Thomson as an essentially negative one, his disillusionment with the Paris art scene compounded by two attacks on him in the same issue of ''[[Mercure de France]]'';<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Mercure de France|date=June 1895|first= Emile|last= Bernard|title= Lettre ouverte à M. Camille Mauclair|pages=332–339}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|journal=Mercure de France|date=June 1895|first= Camille|last= Mauclair|title= Choses d'art|page=359}}</ref> one by [[Émile Bernard|Emile Bernard]], the other by [[Camille Mauclair]]. Mathews remarks that his isolation in Paris had become so bitter that he had no choice but to try to reclaim his place in Tahiti society.{{sfn|Thomson|1987|pp=185–186}}{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=209–210}}

He arrived in September 1895 and was to spend the next six years living, for the most part, an apparently comfortable life as an artist-''[[:Wiktionary:colon#Etymology 3|colon]]'' near, or at times in, Papeete. During this time he was able to support himself with an increasingly steady stream of sales and the support of friends and well-wishers, though there was a period of time 1898–1899 when he felt compelled to take a desk job in Papeete, of which there is not much record. He built a spacious reed and thatch house at [[Puna'auia]] in an affluent area ten miles east of Papeete, settled by wealthy families, in which he installed a large studio, sparing no expense. Jules Agostini, an acquaintance of Gauguin's and an accomplished amateur photographer, photographed the house in 1896.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|p=215}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Jules Agostini, fonctionnaire et photographe|url=http://histoire.assemblee.pf/articles.php?id=332|website=histoire.assemblee.pf|publisher=Histoire de l'Assemblée de la Polynésie française|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141109225701/http://histoire.assemblee.pf/articles.php?id=332|archive-date=9 November 2014|url-status=dead|language=fr|access-date=22 February 2015}}</ref><ref>{{Google books|geyMBgAAQBAJ|Antimodernism and Artistic Experience: Policing the Boundaries of Modernity|page=PT6}}</ref> Later a sale of land obliged him to build a new one in the same neighbourhood.{{sfn|Thomson|1987|p=188}}{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=212–213}}

He maintained a [[Trap (carriage)|horse and trap]], so was in a position to travel daily to Papeete to participate in the social life of the colony should he wish. He subscribed to the ''Mercure de France'' (indeed was a shareholder), by then France's foremost critical journal, and kept up an active correspondence with fellow artists, dealers, critics, and patrons in Paris.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=214–215}} During his year in Papeete and thereafter, he played an increasing role in local politics, contributing abrasively to a local journal opposed to the colonial government, ''Les Guêpes (The Wasps)'', that had recently been formed, and eventually edited his own monthly publication ''[[Le Sourire|Le Sourire: Journal sérieux]] (The Smile: A Serious Newspaper)'', later titled simply ''Journal méchant (A Wicked Newspaper)''.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=232–235}} A certain amount of artwork and woodcuts from his newspaper survive.<ref>{{cite web|title=Head Piece for "Le Sourire" (Monkey—Caricature of Governor Gallet)|url=http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/66094|website=artic.edu|year=1900|publisher=[[Art Institute of Chicago]]}}</ref> In February 1900 he became the editor of ''Les Guêpes'' itself, for which he drew a salary, and he continued as editor until he left Tahiti in September 1901. The paper under his editorship was noted for its scurrilous attacks on the governor and officialdom in general, but was not in fact a champion of native causes, although perceived as such nevertheless.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|p=233}}{{sfn|Danielsson|1965|pp=223–226}}

For the first year at least he produced no paintings, informing Monfreid that he proposed henceforth to concentrate on sculpture. Few of his wooden carvings from this period survive, most of them collected by Monfreid. Thomson cites ''Oyez Hui Iesu (Christ on the Cross)'', a wooden cylinder half a metre (20") tall featuring a curious hybrid of religious motifs. The cylinder may have been inspired by similar symbolic carvings in Brittany, such as at [[Pleumeur-Bodou]], where ancient menhirs have been Christianised by local craftsmen.{{sfn|Thomson|1987|pp=188–190}} When he resumed painting, it was to continue his long-standing series of sexually charged nudes in paintings such as ''Te tamari no atua (Son of God)'' and ''O Taiti (Nevermore)''. Thomson observes a progression in complexity.{{sfn|Thomson|1987|p=190}} Mathews notes a return to Christian symbolism that would have endeared him to the colonists of the time, now anxious to preserve what was left of native culture by stressing the universality of religious principles. In these paintings, Gauguin was addressing an audience amongst his fellow colonists in Papeete, not his former ''avant-garde'' audience in Paris.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=217–219}}<ref>{{cite web|last1=Nikkah|first1=Roya|title=Gauguin's Nevermore voted Britain's most romantic painting|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/7231391/Gauguins-Nevermore-voted-Britains-most-romantic-painting.html|website=telegraph.co.uk|date=14 February 2010 |publisher=Daily Telegraph|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150223042551/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/7231391/Gauguins-Nevermore-voted-Britains-most-romantic-painting.html|archive-date=23 February 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

His health took a decided turn for the worse and he was hospitalised several times for a variety of ailments. While he was in France, he had his ankle shattered in a drunken brawl on a seaside visit to [[Concarneau]].{{sfn|Danielsson|1965|p=163}} The injury, an [[bone fracture|open fracture]], never healed properly. Then painful and debilitating sores that restricted his movement began erupting up and down his legs, and were treated with arsenic. Gauguin blamed the tropical climate and described the sores as eczema, but some biographers consider that this would have been the progress of syphilis.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|p=188}}{{sfn|Thomson|1987|pp=222–223}}  However there is no direct evidence that Gauguin suffered from syphilis, and none that he infected any of his lovers, as is sometimes asserted, although he may have had [[eczema]] and [[erysipelas]].<ref name=Rodgers>{{cite news|last1=Rodgers|first1=Paul|title=Gauguin's British relative disputes artist's notoriety|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/gauguins-british-relative-disputes-artists-notoriety-2191988.html|website=independent.co.uk|publisher=[[The Independent]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150323221414/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/gauguins-british-relative-disputes-artists-notoriety-2191988.html|archive-date=23 March 2015|date=23 January 2011|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=prideauxguardian>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/mar/17/polynesians-astonishing-revelations-paul-gauguin-syphilis-underage|work=The Guardian|title=‘The Polynesians loved him’: the astonishing revelations that cast Paul Gauguin in a new light|first=Sue|last=Prideaux|date=17 March 2025|access-date=18 March 2025|authorlink=Sue Prideaux}}</ref>

[[File:Paul Gauguin - D'ou venons-nous.jpg|thumb|400px|center|''[[Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?]]'', 1897, oil on canvas, 139 × 375&nbsp;cm (55 × 148 in), [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston|Boston Museum of Fine Arts]], Boston, MA]]
In April 1897, he received word that his favorite daughter Aline had died from pneumonia. This was also the month he learned he had to vacate his house because its land had been sold. He took out a bank loan to build a much more extravagant wooden house with beautiful views of the mountains and sea. But he overextended himself in so doing, and by the end of the year faced the real prospect of his bank foreclosing on him.{{sfn|Danielsson|1965|pp=193–195}} Failing health and pressing debts brought him to the brink of despair. At the end of the year he completed his monumental ''[[Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?]]'', which he regarded as his masterpiece and final artistic testament (in a letter to Monfreid he explained that he tried to kill himself after finishing it).{{sfn|Thomson|1987|pp=194–200}}{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=225–229}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/letterspaulgaug00gauggoog#page/n103/mode/2up|title=The Letters of Paul Gauguin to Georges Daniel de Monfreid – Letter XXXI|year=1922|publisher=Dodd, Mead and Company}}</ref> The painting was exhibited at Vollard's gallery in November the following year, along with eight thematically related paintings he had completed by July.<ref>{{cite web|title=Gauguin – Tahiti, The Workshop of the Tropics|url=http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/events/exhibitions/archives/exhibitions-archives/browse/16/article/gauguin-tahiti-latelier-des-tropiques-4206.html?S=&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=252&cHash=f5ab50f1b9&print=1&no_cache=1&|website=musee-orsay.fr|publisher=[[Musée d'Orsay]]}}</ref> This was his first major exhibition in Paris since his Durand-Ruel show in 1893 and it was a decided success, critics praising his new serenity. ''Where do we come from?'', however, received mixed reviews and Vollard had difficulty selling it. He eventually sold it in 1901 for 2,500 francs (about $10,000 in year 2000 US dollars) to {{Interlanguage link|Gabriel Frizeau|fr}}, of which Vollard's commission was perhaps as much as 500 francs.

[[File:Paul Gauguin - Tahitian Woman with Evil Spirit - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''Tahitian Woman with Evil Spirit'', traced monotype, 1899/1900, [[Städel]]]]
Georges Chaudet, Gauguin's Paris dealer, died in the fall of 1899. Vollard had been buying Gauguin's paintings through Chaudet and now made an agreement with Gauguin directly.<ref>[[Nancy Mowll Mathews|Mathews, Nancy Mowll]] (2001) ''Paul Gauguin, an Erotic Life''. New Haven, Connecticut: [[Yale University Press]], pp. 225–9.</ref>{{sfn|Thomson|1987|p=194-200}} The agreement provided Gauguin a regular monthly advance of 300 francs against a guaranteed purchase of at least 25 unseen paintings a year at 200 francs each, and in addition Vollard undertook to provide him with his art materials. There were some initial problems on both sides, but Gauguin was finally able to realise his long cherished plan of resettling in the [[Marquesas Islands]] in search of a yet more [[Urgesellschaft|primitive society]]. He spent his final months in Tahiti living in considerable comfort, as attested by the liberality with which he entertained his friends at that time.{{sfn|Danielsson|1965|pp=227–228}}{{sfn|Mathews|2001|p=234}}<ref>{{cite journal|last1=John|first1=Rewald|title=The genius and the dealer|journal=[[Art News]]|date=May 1959}}</ref>

Gauguin was unable to continue his work in ceramics in the islands for the simple reason that suitable clay was not available.{{sfn|Danielsson|1969|p=18}} Similarly, without access to a printing press (''Le Sourire'' was [[hectograph]]ed),{{sfn|Danielsson|1965|p=209}} he was obliged to turn to the [[monotype]] process in his graphic work.<ref name=Metamorphoses>{{cite web|title=Gauguin: Metamorphoses|url=http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2014/gauguin/home|archive-url=https://archive.today/20150227064259/http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2014/gauguin/home|url-status=dead|archive-date=27 February 2015|website=moma.org|publisher=[[Metropolitan Museum of Art]]}}</ref> Surviving examples of these prints are rather rare and command very high prices in the saleroom.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Truong|first1=Alain R.|title=Record for Any Paul Gauguin Print Sold at Auction Established Today at Sotheby's|url=http://www.alaintruong.com/archives/2011/03/31/20773802.html|website=alaintruong.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150223160006/http://www.alaintruong.com/archives/2011/03/31/20773802.html|archive-date=23 February 2015|url-status=live|date=31 March 2011}}</ref>

During this time Gauguin maintained a relationship with Pahura (Pau'ura) a Tai, the daughter of neighbours in Puna'auia. Gauguin began this relationship when Pau'ura was {{frac|14|1|2}} years old.{{sfn|Danielsson|1965|p=182}} He fathered two children with her, of which a daughter died in infancy. The other, a boy, she raised herself. His descendants still inhabited Tahiti at the time of Mathews' biography. Pahura refused to accompany Gauguin to the Marquesas away from her family in Puna'auia (earlier she had left him when he took work in Papeete just 10 miles away).{{sfn|Danielsson|1965|p=228}} When the English writer [[W. Somerset Maugham]] visited her in 1917, she could offer him no useful memory of Gauguin and chided him for visiting her without bringing money from Gauguin's family.{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=213–214}}

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px" class="center">
File:Paul Gauguin - Oyez Hui Iesu (Christ on the Cross).jpg|''Oyez Hui Iesu (Christ on the Cross)'', rubbing (reverse print) from an 1896 wooden cylinder, [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]
File:Paul Gauguin 091.jpg|''[[Nevermore (Gauguin)|Nevermore]] (O Taiti)'', 1897, [[Courtauld Gallery]], London
File:Paul Gauguin, Eve (The Nightmare), 1899–1900 monotype.jpg|''Eve (The Nightmare)'', 1899–1900, monotype, [[J. Paul Getty Museum]]
</gallery>