Hung amongst amiable paintings of scenic views and farmyard animals in Room 26 of the National Gallery of Scotland, Paul Gaugin’s Vision After the Sermon (1888) eclipses its quaint surroundings. Its luminous crimson background strikes a contrast to the painting’s frame and the cobalt gallery wall behind.
Vision shows a group of traditionally clad women from Pont-Aven almost suspended before the ‘vision of the sermon’: Jacob wrestling with a golden-winged Angel. The figure on the far right of the canvas preaches Jacob’s story from an excerpt of Genesis to the women as they listen. The women’s eyes are closed, some folding their hands in prayer, and their sight is denied. Instead, Gaugin paints their collective imagination, moulded from the word of God itself. We as the audience are encouraged to think of the struggle between flesh and the spirit, between the profane and the sacred, and of our own sin in the presence of a God.
Gaugin’s style during his time in Pont-Aven can be described as Synthetism. Using colour, simplification of form, strong outlines, and flattened perspective, he draws inspiration from Japanese woodblock prints to create works that evoke strong emotive responses within the viewer. Here, Jacob and the Angel are subsumed by the vast otherworldly plane of crimson, only to be interrupted by a tree trunk, a cow, and the pensive women, which ground this painting back into the realm of palpable reality. The artist can be said to have explored the abstraction of vision towards a metaphorical representation of wrestling with faith. The distinction between the real and the imagined teeters on the edge of collapse when viewing this painting in person. Gaugin forces us to contend with the line between reality and what we believe to be reality and our place within both.
Vision After the Sermon is a part of The National Gallery of Scotland’s permanent collection.
Photo Credits: “National Gallery of Scotland” by Ronnie Macdonald is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
