The Vision After the Sermon by Paul Gauguin

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Azul Gurruchaga Shanoskie April 17, 2015 The Vision after the Sermon Paul Gauguin created The Vision after the Sermon or the Jacob Wrestling with the Angel in 1888. He rejected objective representation for subjective expression, which also broke with the Impressionistic studies of minutely contrasted hues because of his belief that colour must be expressive and it’s the artist’s job to choose the colours used in a painting as a seminal element of creativity. In contrast to Van Gogh’s heavy, thick brush strokes that were an important component to his style, Gauguin colour areas appear flatter and visually dissolving into abstract patches and/or patterns. He took lessons with Pissarro and quit his successful business in 1883 in order to dedicate his life to the art. In 1886 Gauguin moved Pont-Aven in France where he painted this work, which rejects both Realism and Impressionism. He had a fixation with the province’s spoiled culture, its ancient Celtic folkway, and the medieval Catholic piety of its people. For him this was the natural men and woman at ease in the unspoiled peasant atmosphere. The woman are shown wearing their white Sunday caps and black dresses while visualising a sermon. The sermon was about Jacob’s encounter with the Holy Sprit. The Breton women pray devoutly before the spirit. Here he departs from optical realism and instead made the focus on the idea and the intensity of the message. He twisted the perspective and gave space to emphasise the faith on the unquestioning and innocent women, while shrinking Jacob and the Angel, who are both wrestling in a ring that is surrounded by a stone fence. In this culture, wrestling matches are the normal entertainment after Sunday mass. Gauguin did not unify the image with a horizon perspective, or with light and shade, or even a use of colour that was naturalistic. He made the scene am

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