Civilization Is What Makes You Sick

This pithy remark is consistent with views Gauguin expressed across multiple writings — he wrote in Gauguin's Intimate Journals (published 1936): "Civilization is paralysis" — but its exact origin and phrasing have not been traced to a specific primary source. The sentiment drove his departures: he left Paris for Brittany in 1886, briefly joined Vincent van Gogh in Arles in 1888, and eventually settled in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, where he died in 1903. His last years on Hiva Oa were spent in open conflict with the French colonial administration, which he attacked in a newspaper he self-published.