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What biblical story appears in Paul Gauguin’s Vision of the Sermon?

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Self-portrait painting by Paul Gauguin showing the artist with a mustache, yellow halo, and stylized plants against a vivid orange background with green and red fruit. — Paul Gauguin Self-portrait by Paul Gauguin, oil on wood, 1889; in the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. 79.2 × 51.3 cm.

The biblical story depicted in Paul Gauguin’s Vision of the Sermon (1888) is the account of Jacob wrestling with an angel.1

This narrative, found in the book of Genesis (32:22–32), portrays a mysterious struggle between the patriarch and a divine being, which results in Jacob receiving the name Israel. In the painting, Gauguin illustrates this event as a vision experienced by a group of Breton women following a sermon. By using Synthetism—a style characterized by flattened forms, bold outlines, and non-naturalistic color—Gauguin emphasized that the fight exists solely within the imagination of the praying congregation.12