Description
Paul Gauguin – The Green Christ – hand-painted oil painting reproduction
A Breton woman kneels at the foot of a calvary, a stone cross bearing a greenish Christ, and behind her the grey Atlantic coast opens out. The work was painted in the autumn of 1889 in Brittany, oil on canvas, 73 × 92 cm, and is held by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. We paint this calvary anew as a hand-painted oil painting reproduction in oil on canvas – painted, never printed. The museum gives the measurement as height by width: 92 × 73 cm, and the work carries accession number 4416.
A cross that actually stands somewhere else
The scene is set by the sea at Le Pouldu – except that the calvary does not stand there. The model is the stone cross beside the church at Nizon, near Pont-Aven, and the figure of Christ is closest to the one on the calvary at Briec. Gauguin took a monument from inland Brittany and moved it to the coast. This is not an observer’s mistake but assembly: the scene is built from real parts that never stood together in the landscape.
Why the Christ is green
The colour is not a symbol but observation carried to its conclusion. The stone of Breton calvaries is covered in lichen and moss, and Gauguin transfers that greenish patina onto the body instead of painting it as shadow on stone. The cross is therefore not a church image but a piece of landscape that has always stood outside in the rain. The areas are held by a dark contour and laid down without modelling – the method then called cloisonnism, after the metal strips in enamel work.
A pair from the same autumn
That same autumn Gauguin painted a second calvary, The Yellow Christ, and the two are now counted among the key works of Symbolism in painting. The green one is cool and turned towards the sea, the yellow one warm and set in a harvested field; together they show that colour, for him, is not the decoration of a scene but its weather. The Yellow Christ appeared once more later – painted on the wall behind the artist in Self-Portrait with the Yellow Christ.
A hand-painted reproduction for your home
The photographs above show this very subject, painted in our workshop. We paint it in eight sizes, among them 73 × 92 cm – exactly the measurement of the original – while for a larger wall 100 × 130 cm is a frequent choice. The quiet, cool range of colour works well in a bedroom, on a staircase or in a room meant for withdrawal. If Breton piety as Gauguin saw it interests you, see also Young Christian Girl.
- Subject: The Green Christ, Paul Gauguin, 1889
- Technique: hand-painted oil painting reproduction on canvas – never printed
- Sizes: 8 formats, from 50 × 65 cm to 150 × 190 cm, including the original measurement of 73 × 92 cm
- Interesting fact: the calvary in the painting stands at Nizon, several kilometres from the coast Gauguin moved it to
