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Who is Paul Gauguin? Where does the myth of “the artist” end and “the real man” begin? It is these questions Abigail Solomon-Godeau explores in her article “Going Native: Paul Gauguin and the Invention of Primitivist Modernism.” The story of Gauguin’s life is shrouded in mystery. Much of this is due to Gauguin’s attempt to present himself as a savage to the bourgeois French society. In order to find answers to these questions Solomon-Godeau looks at the historical facts of Gauguin’s life. In 1883 Gauguin departed from his family life and the materialism of society in search of a more pure culture. It is during these first few ye