Christ in the Garden of Olives

Christ in the Garden of Olives (1889) at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach is Gauguin's most explicit self-portrait as Christ — a work in which he depicts himself with unmistakable self-identification in the role of the suffering, abandoned savior in Gethsemane. He and Van Gogh had been discussing the possibility of painting the subject during their Arles cohabitation; Van Gogh attempted his own version, and both were responding to the tradition of Delacroix's agonized Romantic Christ. Gauguin's version was painted at Le Pouldu in 1889, after the Yellow House catastrophe, and the figure's red hair and familiar face made the self-identification unambiguous. He later distanced himself from the work, calling it 'bad' in a letter, but its emotional honesty makes it one of the most revealing documents of his psychological state in the difficult period following the Arles breakdown. The Norton Museum's possession of this unusual canvas alongside other significant Post-Impressionist works makes it an important destination for understanding the Symbolist-inflected personal mythology Gauguin was constructing in 1889.

The central Christ figure is painted in acid greens and oranges against a deep blue-violet garden, the color relationships chosen for emotional impact rather than naturalistic accuracy. The surrounding apostles are sketchily indicated, keeping pictorial focus on the isolated central figure's expressive posture and vivid auburn hair.