Comparison Of The Yellow Christ And Self-Protrait

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Comparison of The Yellow Christ and Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ The 1889 paintings The Yellow Christ and Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ by Paul Gauguin use similar concepts but have different meanings. In The Yellow Christ, yellow is the main color used in the painting. There are three women in the foreground at his feet. There is also a man in the distance who appears to be straddling a stone wall. The painting is made up of fall colors. The trees look like the leaves have turned orange and the field behind Christ is a yellowish gold. In Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ, the artist makes himself the focal point by painting himself in the foreground. Behind him on the left is a variation of The Yellow Christ and on the right is a painting of a ceramic tobacco jar, illustrating his internal struggle between good and evil. The colors in this painting are overall darker than those in The Yellow Christ which changes the mood of the painting. Even though The Yellow Christ and Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ have the same central theme, I believe that the two paintings have contrasted meanings. While the colors in the paintings have some similarities, the colors in Self-Portrait are generally darker and more sinister than the colors used in The Yellow Christ. The primary colors in The Yellow Christ are yellow, and orange. Jesus’s skin tone is painted the same color as the ground in the painting. The three women are in darker colors which stand apart from the rest of the painting. In Nina Cronan’s essay, she writes,” The still, unnatural, sickly yellow face of crucified Christ immediately confronts the viewer. What is even more shocking than this gaunt figure is his location among a group of blank, expressionless women in an unfamiliar, surreal orange and yellow landscape” (Cronan). In Self-Portrait there are still yellow and oranges but the
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