Paul Gauguin

保罗·高更

Paul Gauguin lived for just 54 years but he packed（充满） his brief life with activity.

保罗·高更去世时只有54岁，但他短暂的一生却十分丰富。

The French painter spent his early childhood in Peru before returning to France.

在回到法国之前，这位法国画家的童年是在秘鲁度过的。

As an adult, he continued to travel a lot. Most famously, he spent much of the last decade of his life in Tahiti, an island in southern Pacific Ocean.

成年后，他四处旅行。最著名的是，他一生的最后几年是在南太平洋的塔希提岛度过的。

Indeed, Gauguin is best known for his colorful paintings of Tahitians and their culture.

事实上，高更最著名的是他丰富多彩的塔希提画和塔希提文化。

The restlessness(烦躁不安) of this great painter has been normal among modern artists since the middle of the 19th century.

自19世纪中期以来，这位伟大的画家的烦躁在现代艺术家中是很正常的。

他们永远不会只满足于一种风格和一种生活方式。一旦事情变得传统，他们就会反抗。

The artistic culture that Gauguin developed from was that of Impressionism（印象派）.

由此发展起来的艺术文化属于印象派。

Painters like Claude Monet had wanted to paint how they saw the world, not how their teachers taught them it should be seen.

像克劳德·像莫奈这样的画家也想通过绘画来表达他们对世界的态度，而不是老师教他们对世界的态度。

Gauguin, and similar artists like his friend Vincent van Gogh, moved even further away from "respectable" art than the Impressionists.

和他相似的画家，如他的朋友文森特·梵高远不如其他印象派画家受人尊敬。

For them, it was not simply a matter of seeing the world differently, but feeling and thinking about it differently, too.

对他们来说，绘画不仅仅是从不同的角度对待世界，更是从不同的角度去感受世界，去思考世界。

Gauguin saw, felt and thought differently from most members of European society.

高更在处理、感受和思考方面与欧洲社会的大多数人不同。

He thought that European culture was too fancy and not spontaneous（自发的）.

他认为欧洲文化太花哨，不自然。

This is why he turned to the traditions of other parts of the world, like Africa, and, eventually, Tahiti.

因此，他正在寻找世界其他地方的传统，比如非洲，以及最终居住的塔希提岛。

Artists like Gauguin used the word "primitive（原始）" for these cultures, but not as a negative term.

用 “原始” 这个词形容保罗这样的艺术家，没有贬义。

对他来说，欧洲非常现代化，商业氛围浓厚，科技发达，但是自然气息比其他地方少。

In truth, Gauguin's paintings may be unconventional but they are certainly not "primitive".

事实上，高更的画作虽然极具争议，但绝非粗糙。

They are the work of a painter with great awareness of what he was doing.

高更知道自己在做什么。

It was this awareness that made him such an important painter for those that came after, in the 20th century.

因此，他成为20世纪的重要画家。

When we look closely at the works of Gauguin we begin to understand Pablo Picasso, and especially Henri Matisse, a little better.

如果我们仔细观察高更的作品，我们就能理解巴勃罗·毕加索的画也能更好地理解亨利的画·马蒂斯的作品。