Paul Gauguin: A Savage’s Martyrdom for Art Paul Gauguin, born in 1848 in Paris, was a figure of captivating contradiction – a wolfish wild man and a sensitive martyr for art, as he himself famously declared. His life was a relentless pursuit of the exotic, fueled by a restless spirit inherited from his Peruvian Creole mother and a yearning to escape the perceived constraints of European civilization. From humble beginnings as a stockbroker’s son, Gauguin embarked on a peripatetic journey that took him across continents, ultimately leading him to the South Seas where he would forge an artisti…