Post-Impressionism1888
Vision after the Sermon
Paul Gauguin
Curator's Eye
"The pivotal element is the diagonally placed tree trunk, a direct influence of Japanese prints, which acts as a physical and spiritual boundary between the praying faithful and Jacob's mystical struggle against the angel."
A manifesto of Synthetism, this revolutionary work breaks with naturalism through its arbitrary red background and brutal separation between Breton reality and biblical vision. Gauguin asserts the primacy of the imaginary over direct observation.
Analysis
Painted in 1888 in Pont-Aven, this canvas marks a definitive rupture in the history of modern art. Gauguin abandons traditional perspective and cast shadows for a symbolist approach where color becomes expressive rather than descriptive. To understand what we see, one must refer to Genesis: Jacob wrestles all night with a stranger who is revealed to be an angel of God. This myth symbolizes spiritual trial and the quest for blessing through inner struggle. Here, Gauguin does not paint the historical combat, but the mental projection of Breton women after hearing the priest's sermon in church.
The choice of vermilion red for the ground is a major act of artistic insubordination. This red does not belong to nature but to the realm of emotion and the supernatural. It transforms the Breton landscape into an inflamed mental arena. The women, with their monumental white coifs and closed faces, form an ancient choir witnessing a theophany. Gauguin fuses here the rustic piety of Brittany with a radical aesthetic, seeking to achieve a form of spiritual "primitivism" far from the industrial corruption of cities.
The artist uses the cloisonnism technique, inspired by medieval stained glass and enamels. Forms are outlined in black or dark blue, and paint is applied in large flat areas. This method removes all atmospheric depth, forcing the viewer to accept the image as a flat surface inhabited by symbols. Gauguin thus rejects the illusionism inherited from the Renaissance to return to a more archaic and direct essence of the image.
This work also reflects Gauguin's psychological state, as he saw himself as a wrestler and a pariah. By placing Jacob and the angel in the upper right corner, he treats them almost like ideograms. The combat is reduced to a ritual dance, a struggle whose outcome is known but whose process is sacred. The presence of the cow on the left, a symbol of terrestrial and rural life, contrasts violently with the mystical fervor of the scene on the right, highlighting the duality of human existence between the trivial and the divine.
One of the best-kept secrets concerns the figure of the man on the far right of the painting, of whom only the profile is visible. This is a hidden self-portrait of Paul Gauguin himself. By including himself among the faithful, he positions himself not just as the creator of the image, but as an initiate, an eyewitness to the vision he himself staged. It is an affirmation of his role as a "medium" between the visible and the invisible.
A technical secret lies in the origin of the figures of Jacob and the angel. Although the subject is biblical, Gauguin drew his iconographic inspiration from Hokusai's sketches of Japanese sumo wrestlers. The contorted postures of the two combatants are directly transposed from ukiyo-e prints, revealing how Oriental art served as a catalyst to deconstruct Western conventions and invent a new visual grammar.
The canvas itself has a history of violent rejection. Gauguin had initially proposed to offer it to the small church in Nizon, near Pont-Aven. However, the priest, frightened by the "diabolical" red and the style he judged monstrous or childish, categorically refused the work. The secret of this painting is that it was born from a desire for popular communion only to end up as a manifesto of the most elite avant-garde, misunderstood by the very people it represented.
Another secret concerns the expanse of red. Pigment analyses have shown that Gauguin used a very expensive pigment at the time, mercury vermilion, which he applied in dense layers to saturate the space. He was looking for a sensation of visual oppression. The use of this rare pigment contrasts with the life of misery he was leading in Brittany at the time, showing that he sacrificed everything, even his food resources, for the vibratory quality of his colors.
Finally, the presence of the cow on the left is not just a reminder of Brittany. In the esotericism that Gauguin was beginning to study, the cow is a symbol of Mother Earth. Its placement, turning its back on the mystical combat, is an ironic secret from the artist: raw nature remains indifferent to the spiritual torments of men. This contrast reinforces the idea that the "vision" is a purely human phenomenon, a construction of consciousness that extracts itself from the animal world.
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Which non-Western iconographic source directly influenced the contorted posture of the figures of Jacob and the angel in this work?
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