Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was born in 1848, in Paris, France. Gauguin was disappointed by traditional European painting finding it too imitative and lacking in symbolic depth. Influenced by folk art and Japanese prints, his work evolved toward Cloisonnism, a style of painting with flat areas of color and bold outlines, which suited Gauguinís quest to express the essence of objects in his art. He was inspired by the primitive art of foreign cultures, incorporating quasi-religious symbolism and an exotic view of Polynesian natives into his work. His painting evolved toward Synthetism, in which neither form nor color predominate, but rather have an equal role.