Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) moved to Tahiti when he was forty-three to escape from "everything that is artificial and conventional." He had been searching for a simplistic place for most of his life and had traveled from his home in Paris to as far as Panama to work briefly on the canal. The exotic beauty, intermingling of bold colors and flattening of space in Asian and African works really appealed to Gauguin and he incorporated those elements into a style that he and his contemporaries referred to as ''synthesism." Gauguin found great inspiration in Tahiti and his works from his time there reflect his fascination with the people and foliage of the island and his desire to capture the primordial beauty in a style far removed from his impressionist beginnings.
(Danielsson, Bengt, Gauguin in the South Seas, New York, Doubleday and Company, 1966)
