The Yellow Christ

It was there that Gauguin painted numerous scenes, including “The Yellow Christ.” The central figure of this painting is based on a seventeenth-century painted wooden crucifix that hangs in the nearby Trémalo Chapel. Gauguin painted Christ in a cloying yellow against a dark brown cross in a vibrant fall landscape. Gauguin said he chose the color yellow to convey how he felt about the isolated life and piety of the peasants, several of whom are pictured here dressed in their distinctive regional costume and kneeling at the foot of the cross during the evening hour of Angelus—a Catholic prayer recited daily at 6 am, noon, and 6 pm.