Editing Paul Gauguin (section)

=== France 1885–1886 ===
[[File:Paul Gauguin 036.jpg|thumb| ''Four [[Bretons|Breton]] Women'', 1886, [[Neue Pinakothek| Neue Pinakothek, Munich]]]]
After a brief period in Italy, spent in the small towns of San Salvo and Ururi, Gauguin returned to Paris in June 1885, accompanied by his six-year-old son Clovis. The other children remained with Mette in Copenhagen, where they had the support of family and friends while Mette herself was able to get work as a translator and French teacher. Gauguin initially found it difficult to re-enter the art world in Paris and spent his first winter back in real poverty, obliged to take a series of menial jobs. Clovis eventually fell ill and was sent to a boarding school, Gauguin's sister Marie providing the funds.<ref>Thompson p. 38.</ref>{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=63–67}} During this first year, Gauguin produced very little art. He exhibited 19 paintings and a wood relief at the eighth (and last) Impressionist exhibition in May 1886.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gersh-Nesic |first1=Berth |title=The Eighth Impressionist Exhibition – 1886 |url=http://arthistory.about.com/od/first_eight_exhibitions/a/eighth_Impressionism_exhibition.htm |website=arthistory.about.com |publisher=[[About.com]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906032942/http://arthistory.about.com/od/first_eight_exhibitions/a/eighth_Impressionism_exhibition.htm |archive-date=6 September 2015}}</ref>

Most of these paintings were earlier work from Rouen or Copenhagen and there was nothing really novel in the few new ones, although his ''Baigneuses à Dieppe'' ("Women Bathing") introduced what was to become a recurring motif, the woman in the waves. Nevertheless, [[Félix Bracquemond]] did purchase one of his paintings. This exhibition also established [[Georges Seurat]] as leader of the ''[[avant-garde]]'' movement in Paris. Gauguin contemptuously rejected Seurat's [[Neo-impressionism|Neo-Impressionist]] [[Pointillism|Pointillist]] technique and later in the year broke decisively with Pissarro, who from that point on was rather antagonistic towards Gauguin.{{sfn|Thomson|1987|pp=39–41}}{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=67–68}}

Gauguin spent the summer of 1886 in the artist's colony of [[Pont-Aven School|Pont-Aven]] in Brittany. He was attracted in the first place because it was cheap to live there. However, he found himself an unexpected success with the young art students who flocked there in the summer. His naturally pugilistic temperament (he was both an accomplished boxer and fencer) was no impediment in the socially relaxed seaside resort. He was remembered during that period as much for his outlandish appearance as for his art. Amongst these new associates was [[Charles Laval]], who would accompany Gauguin the following year to [[Panama]] and [[Martinique]].{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=70–73}}{{sfn|Thomson|1987|pp=42–49}}

That summer, he executed some pastel drawings of nude figures in the manner of Pissarro and those by Degas exhibited at the 1886 eighth Impressionist exhibition. He mainly painted landscapes such as ''La Bergère Bretonne'' ("The Breton Shepherdess"), in which the figure plays a subordinate role. His ''Jeunes Bretons au bain'' ("Young Breton Boys Bathing"), introducing a theme he returned to each time he visited Pont-Aven, is clearly indebted to Degas in its design and bold use of pure colour. The naive drawings of the English illustrator [[Randolph Caldecott]], used to illustrate a popular guide-book on Brittany, had caught the imagination of the ''avant-garde'' student artists at Pont-Aven, anxious to free themselves from the conservatism of their academies, and Gauguin consciously imitated them in his sketches of Breton girls.<ref>Blackburn (1880).</ref> These sketches were later worked up into paintings back in his Paris studio. The most important of these is ''Four Breton Women'', which shows a marked departure from his earlier Impressionist style as well as incorporating something of the naive quality of Caldecott's illustration, exaggerating features to the point of caricature.{{sfn|Thomson|1987|pp=42–49}}{{sfn|Mathews|2001|pp=74–75}}

Gauguin, along with [[Émile Bernard]], Charles Laval, Émile Schuffenecker and many others, re-visited [[Pont-Aven]] after his travels in Panama and Martinique. The bold use of pure colour and [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolist]] choice of subject matter distinguish what is now called the [[Pont-Aven School]]. Disappointed with [[Impressionism]], Gauguin felt that traditional European painting had become too imitative and lacked symbolic depth. By contrast, the art of Africa and Asia seemed to him full of mystic symbolism and vigour. There was a vogue in Europe at the time for the art of other cultures, especially that of Japan ([[Japonism]]). He was invited to participate in the [[Paul Gauguin's exhibit at Les XX, 1889|1889 exhibition]] organized by [[Les XX]].

<gallery widths="200px" heights="200px" class="center">
File:Gauguin Women Bathing.jpg|''Women Bathing'', 1885, [[National Museum of Western Art| National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo]]
File:Paul Gauguin - La bergère bretonne.jpg|''La Bergère Bretonne'', 1886, [[Laing Art Gallery]]
File:Gauguin - Bretonne.jpg|''Breton Girl'', 1886, [[Burrell Collection| Burrell Collection, Glasgow]]
File:Paul Gauguin, 1886-87, Breton Bather, Art Institute of Chicago.jpg|''Breton Bather'', 1886–87, [[Art Institute of Chicago]]
</gallery>