Gauguin, Paul (1848-1903)
Autoportrait (Self-portrait)
c.1893
Oil on canvas, 46 × 38.1 cm
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Gauguin exemplified the restless artistic spirit. In this image, painted during a brief return to Paris from Tahiti in 1893, he plays the role of “outsider,” wearing the clothes and long hair of a Breton peasant rather than the suit of a Parisian. The background is divided horizontally, separating a cerebral and spiritual world from a physical and material one. His hand points toward a reproduction of a sketch by the painter Eugene Delacroix representing Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise. With this gesture Gauguin alludes to his sympathies for the distraught couple, for he was temporarily expelled from the paradise he had discovered in Tahiti. (DIA)
See also:
• Delacroix, Eugène (1798-1863)