Paul Gauguin's 1888 Masterpiece 'La visione dopo il sermone' Revolutionized Modern Art

In 1888, Paul Gauguin created 'La visione dopo il sermone,' now regarded as his first true masterpiece. The painting depicts Breton women in traditional white headdresses experiencing a collective vision of Jacob wrestling with an angel after a sermon. Gauguin abandoned Paris for Pont-Aven in Brittany, where he developed Synthetism with other artists. This artistic approach featured simplified forms, flat color fields, and bold outlines, rejecting traditional perspective and optical illusions. A diagonal tree divides the composition between the real world of the faithful and the mystical vision. Gauguin employed innovative color choices: the visionary ground appears in vivid red, Jacob wears bottle green, the angel ultramarine blue, and the wings luminous chrome yellow. These colors were selected for spiritual impact rather than realistic representation. The painting shows influences from Japanese prints that Gauguin admired, with figures cropped at edges and flat surfaces. In a letter to Vincent van Gogh, Gauguin explained that the landscape and struggle exist only in the imagination of the praying people. The work represents art as vision rather than observed reality, emphasizing spiritual experience over material representation. The faces of the women resemble wooden sculptures like saints' statues Gauguin saw in country churches. The painting is housed at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.