The Yellow Christ
1889
oil on canvas
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo,
General Purchase Funds, 1946

The Yellow Christ was inspired by a polychromed crucifix that Gauguin saw in a Breton chapel. Gauguin's painting brings the wood sculpture outdoors and heightens the palette, coloring the Christ figure an acid yellow and placing him in a prismatic autumnal landscape. The seasonal choice for the painting was likely influenced by local Breton belief, which associated the Crucifixion with the fall harvest and the Resurrection with springtime renewal.