Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin - (1848 - 1903) was a leading Post-Impressionist painter. His bold experimentation with coloring led directly to the Synthetist style of modern art while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the cloisonnist style, paved the way to Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. He was also an influential exponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms. In 1891, Gauguin, frustrated by lack of recognition at home and financially destitute, sailed to the tropics to escape European civilization and everything that is artificial and conventional. Living in Mataiea Village in Tahiti, he painted Fatata te Miti By the Sea, Ia Orana Maria (Ave Maria) and other depictions of Tahitian life. He moved to Punaauia in 1897, where he created the masterpiece painting Where Do We Come From and then lived the rest of his life in the Marquesas Islands, returning to France only once, when he painted at Pont-Aven.