The Green Christ

The Green Christ (Calvaire breton, 1889) at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels belongs to the breakthrough year of Gauguin's Synthetist development, a companion piece to The Yellow Christ and sharing with it the subject of a roadside Breton crucifix surrounded by praying women. Where The Yellow Christ was suffused with golden warmth, The Green Christ employs the cooler palette appropriate to its different season and light conditions, the green-grey of the Breton landscape and the worn stone of the old calvaire creating a more austere and melancholy atmosphere. Breton roadside calvaires were ancient pre-Reformation crucifixes, their Romanesque or Gothic style already archaic by the nineteenth century, and their combination of Christian devotion with formal primitivism appealed directly to Gauguin's Synthetist project. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels hold this canvas alongside major Belgian and French paintings from the same period, and its presence in Belgium rather than France reflects the early Benelux collecting of Post-Impressionist work.

The stone crucifix and surrounding figures are rendered with minimal modulation of tone, their surfaces described in areas of muted green, grey, and sienna. The compressed, flattened treatment of the stone Christ contrasts with the slightly warmer, more varied handling of the surrounding Breton peasant women, distinguishing sacred image from contemporary devotee.