“For me in this painting the landscape and the fight exist only in the imagination of the people praying after the sermon, which is why there is a contrast between the people, who are natural, and the struggle going on in a landscape which is non natural and out of proportion.” (Gauguin qtd in Silverman, 99-100)
Finally, Gauguin’s growth reached a climax in “Vision After the Sermon,” (1888) in which he at last found the colors and the “idiom” he had been searching for in Brittany and created a work that, according to Fred Kliener, “decisively rejects Realism and Impressionism” and is considered his first true Symbolist painting. (Kliener, 918) This decisive rejection, like the progression leading up to it, was greatly dependent on Gauguin’s development of color, however this dependence is often overlooked because of the obvious Christian imagery in “Vision After the Sermon.” As in “Yellow Christ,” the Symbolic power of “Vision” has been widely attributed to its religious subject matter alone. For example, art critic Albert Aurier highlighted the significance of religion in the piece, saying that “Vision After the Sermon” marked Gauguin as a Symbolist primarily because of its “visionary subject matter.” (Aurier qtd in Jirat-Wasiutynski, 92) Silverman supports this claim by stating that, “With ‘Vision After the Sermon,’ Gauguin initiated his symbolist project in the hushed solemnity of a religious meditation.” (Silverman, 99) For Silverman, by using this “religious meditation” Gauguin is able to make a clear distinction between what is real, the praying people, and what is imagined, the religious vision they see.
Yet, while the Christian subject matter does help move Gauguin into the realm of Symbolism, his changing use of color in “Vision After the Sermon” is more significant in marking the piece as a major artistic turning point. The distinction been observation and vision, and the fusion of the two onto one pictoral plane, is made most powerfully through Gauguin’s colors. For example, the women in the foreground of the scene are painted, according to Gauguin, in harshly contrasting “intensely black clothes” and luminous “yellow-white bonnets,” (Gauguin qtd in Denvir, 46) connecting them with the factual, concrete earth. In contrast, Gauguin describes the ground on which Jacob and the Angel wrestle, distinctly divided from the women, as being painted in a startling “pure vermillion” and the figures of Jacob and the Angle themselves are painted in “violent ultramarine,” “bottle green,” “pure chrome-yellow” and “orange.” (Gauguin qtd in Denvir, 46) These intense colors give power and radiance to the supernatural world, separating it from the duller, lifeless black-and-white actuality. To this end, Sven Lovgren comments on the symbolic meaning of color in the painting, saying, “By the rhythmical repetition of …the prevailing cold color scale, they [the praying figures] merge into a united visual symbol for the conception of a ‘pious group.’” (Lovgren, 101) Thus, for Lovgren, the subject matter itself is not symbolic, but is transformed into a symbol through Gauguin’s use of color. Color creates another “visual symbol” in the tree that divides the two realms. The trunk is outlined in dull brown on the left and in brilliant orange on the right, enhancing, as Silverman calls attention to, its symbolic role as a barrier between the unnatural and natural world. (Silverman, 101) As Silverman states, “Gauguin invented a new chromatic key modulated to the contours of inner vision and the wonders of a transcendent totality.” (Silverman, 113) By using this new “chromatic key” of an “austere” palette (Gauguin qtd in Denvir, 46) and applying color in large, flat sections, Gauguin intensified his tones, giving them greater purpose and power. With this power, Gauguin moves his colors well beyond those of reality, representing his own movement into the world of imagination, vision and dream -- into the world of Symbolism, a world including, but certainly not indebted to, Christian iconography.