I was slo interested in Gauguin's comment on "the refinement of a work." I am not sure what he meant by it being a visual artist. A performance artist is expressing themselves in the moment, which does not lend itself to refinement of a work. A work of art that is developed by an artist is conducted with refinement until what the artist conceives begins to show and only ends when the artist has no more ability to go further. It took four years for Da Vinci to produce the Mona Lisa, refining it at the end with a single-strand horse hair brush. Gaugin's need was to schuck culture sense and sensibilities back to what he was before he put on those garmets. To shed the cultural shell or identity which handicaps natural instincts. These natural instincts includes the existential identity one has as a child, to identify only with what one thinks, feels, and knows, especially when in youth, freedom of thinking, feeling, and knowing is allowed. From his writings, the struggle to change his cultural identity is what I think drove him for the last half of his life. At great cost, he succeeded. An excellent source book about the struggle of an artist.
