The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel) - Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin's *The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel)* depicts Breton women visualising the biblical scene of Jacob wrestling with the angel. The painting's non-naturalistic colours and simplified forms exemplify Gauguin's Synthetist style.

Paul Gauguin's 1888 painting, *The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel)*, presents a scene of religious experience. The work depicts Breton women, distinguished by their traditional white bonnets, visualising the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with an angel. This episode, taken from the Book of Genesis, is not rendered naturalistically; instead, it appears as a vision on a red ground, separated from the women by a tree branch. Gauguin's use of colour is non-naturalistic, with the ground painted a flat, intense red, which departs from Impressionistic techniques. The figures are outlined in bold contours, a characteristic of the Synthetist style, which sought to convey the essence of the subject rather than its surface appearance. The composition is divided into two distinct areas: the foreground with the Breton women and the background with the wrestling scene. This division reflects the painting's theme of the intersection between the physical and spiritual realms. The women's devout expressions and clasped hands suggest a state of religious contemplation, while the wrestling match embodies a struggle between faith and doubt. Gauguin's interest in Primitivism is apparent in the simplified forms and the rejection of traditional perspective. The painting is housed at the National Galleries of Scotland.