I Am A Great Artist And

Gauguin made this declaration in an interview with Jules Huret published in L'Écho de Paris on 23 February 1891, just before his first departure for Tahiti — an interview also preserved on p. 48 of The Writings of a Savage (1978). The fuller passage makes clear this was not vanity but a defense of his choices: "It is because of what I am that I have endured so much suffering, so as to pursue my vocation, otherwise I would consider myself a rogue." His friendship with Vincent van Gogh, whose yellow house in Arles Gauguin had briefly shared in 1888 before their catastrophic falling-out, had ended with van Gogh's breakdown and Gauguin's retreat to Paris.