Paul Gauguin Drawings by Daniel Coenn

Description

From Paris stockbroker to Tahitian visionary, Paul Gauguin redrew the map of modern art — and Paul Gauguin: Drawings by Daniel Coenn captures his restless genius at its most intimate. Part of the My Pocket Gallery series, this volume gathers Gauguin's rare and delicate sketches, from his Breton years to the luminous Tahiti period. Coenn's annotations reveal how these drawings show Gauguin's break with Impressionism: the bold contours, the flat planes of color, and the symbolic power he called Synthetism.

Here you can trace the first ideas behind great paintings — studies of Tahitian women, tropical landscapes, and scenes blending Christian and indigenous beliefs — and watch an artist thinking in line and rhythm. That watching is the real pleasure of this book. A finished Gauguin painting can feel remote and monumental; a drawing feels like a thought in progress, where you can see him deciding how much to simplify, where to place a heavy outline, how to let color carry meaning instead of description. Each sketch is presented with clear commentary on technique, subject, and the moment in Gauguin's extraordinary life it belongs to, so even readers new to his work can follow the journey from Brittany to the Pacific. The Breton sketches are worth lingering on: there you can see the turn away from Impressionism happening in real time, as outlines harden and colors flatten into bold, symbolic shapes. For students, these pages are a rare record of a style being invented rather than inherited.

Compact and beautifully organized, Paul Gauguin: Drawings is an ideal pocket gallery for students, artists, and anyone drawn to one of art history's most fascinating rebels. It is also the perfect companion to a volume of his paintings, showing the private experiments behind the public masterpieces. Available as a discounted ebook from Tellebook.
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