An exceptional monograph-catalogue revealing the innovative drive in Gauguin's work. This catalogue offers a unique opportunity to view Gauguin's entire artistic development from his early impressionist works to his final masterpieces painted on the Marquesas Islands where the artist went in search of an Arcadian kingdom "of ecstasy, peace and art, far from the typical European struggle for money". In reality such a paradise on earth no longer existed, not even on the other side of the globe, however the wealth and complexity of life that he found before him there, inspired the creation of a series of works which are among the most vivid and durable in the history of painting.