The Moon and Sixpence W Somerset Maugham 1919 Modern Library Hardcover

This book, published in 1919, is a lightly fictionalized gloss on the life of Paul Gaugin. Like Gaugin, its protagonist, Charles Strickland, abandons his family and life as a stockbroker to become a bohemian painter in France, and later in Tahiti. The narrator of the story is a fictional version of Maugham, a device he employed in several of his novels. (Gore Vidal once perceptively said that Maugham's greatest fictional creation may have been the avuncular authorial presence he put into his books.)

Gaugin had little acclaim in his lifetime, but enormous influence after his death as a bridge between impressionism and the modern masters of the early twentieth century. He used a bold color palate and a thick, powerful line to create works that are both primitive and spirtual, grounded and ethereal. Maugham explores the psychology of the artist, and how his difficult personality fueled the creation of his masterworks. Describing great art and its emotional impact is hard, but Maugham manages to convey many of the complexities and attractions in Strickland/Gaugin's paintings.