Gauguin was first a sailor, then a successful stockbroker in
Paris. In 1874 he began to paint on weekends. By the age of 35,
with the encouragement of Camille Pissarro, he devoted himself
completely to his art, having given up his position and
separated (1885) from his wife and five children. Allying
himself with the Impressionists, he exhibited with them from
1879 to 1886. The next year he sailed for Panama and Martinique.
In protest against the "disease" of civilization, he determined
to live primitively, but illness forced him to return to France.
The next years were spent in Paris and Brittany, with a brief
but tragic stay with Van Gogh at Arles. Later Life and Art In
1888, Gauguin and Émile Bernard proposed a synthetist theory of
art, emphasizing the use of flat planes and bright,
nonnaturalistic color in conjunction with symbolic or primitive
subjects. The Yellow Christ (Albright-Knox Art Gall., Buffalo)
is characteristic of this period. In 1891, Gauguin sold 30
canvases and with the proceeds went to Ta