Paul Gauguin is a painter of the 19th century, a figure of “post-impressionism”, whose paintings now sell for astronomical sums. Yet it has not always been this way, and Gauguin died in poverty, like his friend Van Gogh.

Even if history has not recognized the importance of his trip to Martinique, he himself said that it is in what he brought back that we must look to know who he is. He arrived in June 1887 and left in November 1887, sick and ruined. A short but productive period during which he sketched numerous drawings and painted about fifteen paintings. Gauguin is an atypical character for his time. He shuns social events, conventions, and the artifices of the Western world and finds refuge in tropical regions where he seeks inspiration. In 1891, he embarked for Polynesia and then for the Marquesas Islands.

A youth marked by travel

Gauguin was born in 1848, the year of the abolition of slavery. He had Spanish and Native American origins that he would claim throughout his life. His mother was known for her commitment to the working class, feminism, and the fight against slavery. After his schooling in Orléans, he decided to embark as a cabin boy on a merchant ship when he was only 17 years old. He then sailed through Latin America, Chile, Brazil, and made a stopover in Fort-de-France where he learned of his mother’s death in Paris. He served in the military, still in the Navy, before leaving in 1871.

Back in Paris, he led a bourgeois life and married a Danish woman in 1873 who gave him five children. It was during this time that he became interested in painting and started collecting paintings. Cézanne, Monet, Renoir, all the great names of the time. It was also at this time that he started painting and joined the group of impressionists.

Ruined by the stock market crash of 1882, he decided to devote himself to painting and went to Rouen. His wife, tired of financial problems, eventually returned to Denmark with their five children. He was forced to sell his paintings to survive.

Faced with the failure of his marriage and his career as a painter, he went to Brittany and then embarked for Panama in 1886.

“I’m going to Panama to live like a savage. I know a small island of Tabogas in the Pacific; it is almost uninhabited, free, and very fertile. I will bring my colors and brushes, and I will immerse myself far from all men.”

Disappointed by Panama, he decided to embark for Martinique with the painter Charles Laval at the beginning of June 1887.

Gauguin “in the land of the Creole gods”

Paul Gauguin stayed in Martinique from June to November 1887. For four months, he was dazzled by the beauty of the island, “this wonderful country where there is so much for an artist to do.” Upon his arrival on the island, he stayed in a hut two kilometers from Saint Pierre, in Anse Turin. He was particularly interested in the constant ballet of Carbet women who went to sell fruits in Saint Pierre. This inspired a painting called “comings and goings,” which depicts women who came every morning to pick guavas, mangoes, and coconuts that they carried to the Saint Pierre market.

Gauguin was fascinated by the landscapes, “the sea with a sandy beach to take a bath and on either side, admirable coconut trees and other fruit trees for the landscape painter.”

Although he frequented the city of Saint Pierre (a cultural center at the time), there is no trace of it in his paintings. He only wanted to see the rural people and their environment. His works also provide a testimony to Martinican society in the 19th century, particularly rural life.

You can find the whole Martinique experience of the painter at the Gauguin Museum, now the Paul Gauguin Interpretation Center, in Carbet, Anse Turin, which was the painter’s address in Martinique.