Was he just a "Sunday painter" who abandoned his wife and five children for a bohemian life in a distant island paradise — where he died of syphilis and poverty in the arms of a teenage mistress?
Or, was he one of the 19th century's greatest artists, an idealist with a restless spirit that searched for pure beauty in a primitive style that inspired Pablo Picasso and luscious colors that influenced Henri Matisse?
There is no question that Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was an enigma even among the avant-garde post-Impressionist painters of his time and friends like Camille Pissarro and Vincent Van Gogh, with whom he had a famous falling out.