Executed between mid-August 1888 and mid-SeptemberThe Vision after the Sermon marks the transition between two different styles in Gauguin’s development as an artist. Having found that his artistic ideals did not coincide with the Impressionistic ones, Gauguin endeavored, through his art, to transcend material reality and to attain a more eminent one. As a result, a shift in the choice of subject matter occurred. From the transient scenes which had been the hallmark of Impressionism Gauguin moved to religious themes and The Vision after the Sermon is the first in the series of paintings related to religious subjects. Gauguin himself acknowledged this decisive break with Impressionism and his stylistic innovation in a letter to Emile Schuffenecker on 8 October 1888, after having completed The Vision after the Sermon :
Vision after the Sermon (1888)
This year I have sacrificed everything-execution, color-for style, because I wished to force myself into doing something other than what I know how to do. I believe this is a change which has not yet borne fruit, but will one day do so. (qtd. Solana, 41)
Gauguin’s confession offers valuable insight into what his intentions were. He was trying to accomplish his earlier desire to become a replica of Christ by means of his genuine artistic creation. In the letter to Schuffenecker he announced a promising long- term project which was going to result in the association of his name with the term “Symbolism”.
The Vision after the Sermon depicts a group of Bretton women who experience an apparition of the biblical scene of the combat between Jacob and the Angel, after having previously listened to the priest’s sermon. They are all appalled, but they display different reactions to the vision- some simply watch, while other pray with their eyes closed. In order to convey the emotional charge and to differentiate the painting from a mere reproduction of the scene Gauguin appeals to some compositional devices.
Sketch for the Vision after the Sermon,” Album Walter”, 1888/ Sketch for the Vision after the Sermon, 1888
The stylistic transformation becomes more apparent if we compare the sketches in the Album Walter with the final canvas. The rendition in the sketch is more naturalistic, the spatial relationships and the traditional adjustments of scale are still respected, whereas the final painting disregards these technical conventions. In the painting itself the figures in the foreground are depicted according to the established rules: they possess “modeled bodies with some volume.”(Solana, 42). By contrast, the image in the background containing the combat is flat and disproportionate with respect to the one in the foreground. Moreover, a new element that breaches the traditional perspectival structures appears in the final painting in addition to the initial composition of the sketch: a cow. By reducing the naturalistic quality of the background, while still maintaining that of the foreground Gauguin obtained the desired separation between the real and the imaginary in his painting. The artist confirmed his deliberate departure from the traditional manner of rendition and its intended stylistic effects in a letter to Van Gogh:
For me, in this painting, the landscape and the fight only exist in the imagination of the praying people after the sermon, hence the unnatural and disproportionate contrast between the real people and the fight in its landscape. (qtd. Solana, 43)
Although initially The Vision after the Sermon was conceived as a religious painting and was intended to become part of the decorative ensemble in the church of Pont-Aven, it eventually found its way to Theo Van Gogh to be sold, for the painting was not accepted by the clergy. In the same letter to Van Gogh Gauguin offers the reason for this refusal when he affirms that in this painting he has reached “a great rustic and superstitious simplicity.”(qtd. Solana, 44) These words make clear that Gauguin’s primary interests were the “ancestral spirit”(Solana, 44) and the “religious atavism”(Solana, 44) encountered in the Bretton community and not the religious subject of the painting. Amishai Maisels suggested that the combat between Jacob and the Angel symbolizes the process of artistic creation and Gauguin’s ambition to have his art sanctioned by the divine. His subsequent paintings on religious themes, especially his self-portraits as Christ demonstrate that Gauguin failed to accomplish his ambition and that he ended up conveying his savagery instead of the connection with the divine that he speculated in The Vision after the Sermon. Nevertheless, The Vision after the Sermon remains a powerful pronouncement of Gauguin’s new style and paves the way to a new type of art which seeks meanings beyond sheer physicality.