From the childhood in lima to the “savage of peru”: Paul gauguin’s peruvian paradox

The article explores Paul Gauguin’s relationship with the country of his childhood, Peru, attempting to answer a central question: How to connect the privileged experience of Gauguin in Lima with his later identification as “savage of Peru”? The investigation takes as a starting point the mansion he lived in during his stay in Lima. It analyzes then, on the one hand, the reasons why the artist never travelled back to Peru, as well as on the other hand the role of his Peruvian identity in his artistic universe.