{"id":187520,"date":"2026-08-14T11:14:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/?post_type=product&p=187520"},"modified":"2026-08-14T11:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:14:41","slug":"christ-in-the-garden-of-olives","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/svetslik.si\/en\/paul-gauguin\/christ-in-the-garden-of-olives\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Gauguin \u2013 Christ in the Garden of Olives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christ in the Garden of Olives \u2013 a red-haired Christ and the figures walking away<\/h2>\n

In 1889 Paul Gauguin painted Christ in the garden, in the moment just before the arrest. The figure sits at the lower left of the canvas, bowed forward, in a dark olive cloak, hands laid on a pale cloth in the lap. The hair is painted a bright vermilion red of a kind nature does not provide. Behind the figure a bare dark trunk rises, and at the right in the background two dark figures are walking away among the trees, one in a broad-brimmed hat. The sky is blue-green, and below it run a band of pale foliage and a narrow salmon stripe. The work is held by the Norton Museum of Art under accession number 46.5. The format is landscape \u2013 the museum states height first and width second, so 72.4 x 91.4 cm.<\/p>\n

Who leaves and who stays<\/h3>\n

The whole content of the work lies in the relation between foreground and background. In front sits a single figure, bowed and motionless; behind, two others are moving off and no longer face towards it. Gauguin did not paint the event but the moment after it: here the abandonment is spatial, not narrative. That is exactly why the scene stays quiet, although it is one of the most dramatic moments of the story.<\/p>\n

The red hair<\/h3>\n

The strongest colour on the canvas is not in the sky and not in the robe but in the hair. Gauguin laid it on in a flat vermilion, without transitions, so that the head springs out of the dark ground as a sign of colour. That red is also the only warm area in the upper half: if a reproduction softens it, the whole colour balance collapses.<\/p>\n

Where the original is<\/h3>\n

The original is at the Norton Museum of Art, accession number 46.5, oil on canvas, measuring 72.4 x 91.4 cm. The museum record dates the work to 1889 and lists it as the gift of Elizabeth C. Norton. The museum record and the public art database agree on the measurement, the year and the accession number.<\/p>\n

The signature on the canvas<\/h3>\n

In the lower right corner the signature P. Gauguin with the year 89 is painted in red. It is the painter\u2019s own stroke and part of the original work, not a mark added afterwards and not a watermark. On the reproduction it is painted just like the rest of the scene, because it belongs to the work.<\/p>\n

How a hand-painted reproduction is made<\/h3>\n

Our hand-painted canvas art is made brushstroke by brushstroke, painted by hand in oils, with no printing at any stage. On this subject the face is the hardest part: the bowed head has to stay quiet and heavy, or the scene loses its silence and becomes merely a dark landscape. Before dispatch you receive a photograph of the finished piece for approval.<\/p>\n