Vincent in Arles
(1888)  
 

Vincent wanted to show peasant life and work on the land – a recurring theme in his art – and painted several stages of the harvest. We see a half mowed wheatfield, ladders and several carts. A reaper works in the background, which is why he titled the work La moisson or 'The Harvest'. Vincent considered it one of his most successful paintings, writing to his brother Theo that the ‘canvas absolutely kills all the rest’.
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/s0030V1962

Harvest at La Crau, with Montmajour in the Background
June, 1888
Oil on canvas
73.0 x 92.0 cm.

Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/s0030V1962

Vincent in Arles
(1888) 

 Vincent made countless trips to Montmajour, a hill with an abbey on top a few kilometres northeast of the city centre. He discovered it two weeks after his arrival in Arles while exploring the surrounding countryside, and he expressed the desire to go there soon to paint. Vincent considered the hill beautiful, with its abbey and its view over the flat landscape:
“The appeal that these vast landscapes have for me is very intense. And so I’ve felt no annoyances in spite of some essentially annoying circumstances, the mistral and the mosquitoes. If a view makes one forget those little vexations, there must be something in it.” Read the complete letter
Though Vincent evidently refused to be daunted by conditions on the hill, the stiff wind forced him to concentrate on drawing rather than painting: when he set up his easel, the canvas vibrated in the wind. The drawings Vincent did on Montmajour, mostly using a reed pen, are some of his best.

https://www.vangoghroute.com/france/arles/montmajour/

Sunset at Montmajour
Summer, 1888
Oil on canvas
93.3 x 73.3 cm. 
Private collection

In 1990 Sunset at Montmajour was presented to staffs at Van Gogh Museum. But it was dismissed following doubts on whether it was Van Gogh`s work or not. The spat came up because the art did not have Van Gogh's sign. So there was no authenticity connecting to the piece of art. Years down the line, there was an elevation of investigation techniques and a new team launched an investigation over the validity of the piece of art. The investigation was carried out in 2011 by Van Gogh Museum.

 

 The Abby of Montmajour on Google Streetview

 Vincent in Arles
(1888)
 

"I’m now going over all the canvases a little more before sending them to you.
But during the harvest my work has been no easier than that of the farmers themselves who do this harvesting. Far from my complaining about it, it’s precisely at these moments in artistic life, even if it’s not the real one, that I feel almost as happy as I could be in the ideal, the real life."
 </i>
From a letter to his brother Theo, 1 July 1888

Green Ears of Wheat
June, 1888


Oil on canvas
54.0 x 65.0 cm.  


Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, Gift of the Hanadiv Foundation

Vincent in Arles
(1888)
 

'I've had a week of concentrated hard work in the wheatfields right out in the sun,' Vincent wrote to his brother Theo. He was busy experimenting with brushwork and colour – for example, in this painting. Here he juxtaposes the golden yellow of the ripe wheat with a swirl of many different colours for the plants in the foreground. The horizon is high, so the field takes up almost the entire painting.

Van Gogh painted this subject many times that summer. He wrote to his friend Émile Bernard, 'Old gold yellow landscapes — done quick quick quick and in a hurry, like the reaper who is silent under the blazing sun, concentrating on getting the job done.'
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0146V1962

Wheat Field with the Alpilles Foothills in the Background
June, 1888 


Oil on canvas on cardboard
54.0 x 65.0 cm. 


Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0146V1962

Vincent in Arles / Saint-Rémy-de-Provence
(1888)

In early June, Vincent takes to the fields around Arles to study the first harvest of the season. He works until the twentieth, when sudden torrential rains make both harvesting and painting impossible. His ‘campaign’ results in a series of at least five drawings and ten paintings of wavering wheat, haystacks and rows of wheat sheaves, including Wheat stacks in Provence.
Van Gogh paints the work in the field, under the full summer sun, happy ‘as a cricket’ and in total concentration. Wheat stacks are an unusual motif in landscape painting in his day, but he even places them at the front of the composition. Satisfied, he tells Theo that he created the work in a single session.

Wheat fields are a comforting motif for Van Gogh: ‘Their story is ours, for we who live on bread, are we not ourselves wheat to a considerable extent, at least ought we not to submit to growing, powerless to move, like a plant, relative to what our imagination sometimes desires, and to be reaped when we are ripe’.

https://krollermuller.nl/en/vincent-van-gogh-wheat-stacks-in-provence

Haystacks in Provence
June, 1888
Oil on canvas
73.0 x 92.5 cm.
Otterlo: Kröller-Müller Museum
https://krollermuller.nl/en/vincent-van-gogh-wheat-stacks-in-provence

Vincent in Arles 

(1888) 

On 1 May 1888, Vincent rented part of a yellow stucco-faced building on Place Lam­­­­artine at a rate of 15 francs a month. He used it as a studio at first, and on 1 September he began living there too. He called the building the Yellow House and planned to lavishly decorate its interior with paintings.
Vincent wanted to turn the house into a “studio of the south” where artists could live and work together. He needed company and a sounding board, and living with others was more economical besides. Using money from his brother Theo, he had new furniture made – two beds, chairs and a table – and got the house connected to the gas supply so he could work by artificial light in the evenings and in winter. He created a number of works for the purpose of decorating the house; they included four sunflower paintings, The Public Garden with a couple strolling, The Tarascon Stagecoach, The Night Café, The Yellow House (“The Street”), Starry Night over the Rhône and The Trinquetaille bridge.

https://www.vangoghroute.com/france/arles/the-yellow-house/

View of Arles with Irises in the Foreground


May, 1888
Oil on canvas
54.0 x 65.0 cm. 


Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0037V1962

Vincent in Arles
(1888) 

On 7 May 1889, Vincent took a room at the Café de la Gare on Place Lamartine at a rate of one franc per night. He had recently begun using the Yellow House as a studio. Though Vincent became friendly with the café’s owners, Joseph and Marie Ginoux, it did not stop him from arguing with them over his belief that he was paying too much:
“I’d given a piece of my mind to the said lodging-house keeper, who isn’t a bad man after all, and I’d told him that to get my own back on him for having paid him so much money for nothing, I’d paint his whole filthy old place as a way of getting my money back.” 

Read the complete letter: https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let676/letter.html
https://www.vangoghroute.com/france/arles/la-gare/

Still Life: Bowl with Daisies
May, 1888
Oil on canvas
33.0 x 42.0 cm. 
Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
http://www.vggallery.com/painting/p_0591.htm

Vincent in Arles
(1888)
 

During his first two months in Arles, Vincent stayed in a room at the Carrel hotel and restaurant, owned by Albert Carrel and his wife, Cathérine Carrel-Garcin. The hotel was a two-storey building with a small roof terrace and a first-floor balcony. 

Shortly after arriving in Arles, Vincent wrote to his brother Theo:
“At times it seems to me that my blood is more or less ready to start circulating again, which wasn’t the case lately in Paris, I really couldn’t stand it any more.” 

Read the complete letter: https://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let578/letter.html

https://www.vangoghroute.com/france/arles/carrel/

The White Orchard
April, 1888
Oil on canvas
60 x 81 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0024V1962

Vincent in Arles
(1888) 

When Van Gogh arrived in Arles (FR) in February 1888, winter still held the village in its grip. After a few weeks, spring came. Full of enthusiasm, he began a series of studies of trees in blossom. When he saw the paintings side by side, he had the idea of combining them into triptychs. In a triptych, three works are combined into one harmonious whole. Van Gogh was familiar with this idea from Japanese prints.

Van Gogh went on to produce no fewer than fourteen paintings of fruit trees in blossom in the space of a month. He hoped his orchard paintings would sell. To his brother Theo he wrote, 'You know these subjects are among the ones that cheer everyone up.'

Pink Peach Tree in Blossom, Reminiscence of Mauve
March, 1888
Oil on canvas
73 x 59,5 cm
Otterlo: Kröller-Müller Museum

Vincent in Arles
(1888)

<i>Vincent lived in Arles in the South of France for more than a year. He experienced great productivity there before suffering from a mental breakdown.
Vincent arrived in Arles on 20 February 1888. After two years in Paris, he was tired of the bustle and demands of city life and longed for the sunshine and vibrant colours of the south. When he got to Arles, Vincent took a room at the hotel-restaurant Carrel, and later, one at Café de la Gare. In early September, he moved into the Yellow House, which he had begun using as a studio on 1 May.
Vincent was highly productive during this period and made numerous paintings and drawings in and around Arles. He developed an expressive, individual painting style characterised by bold colours and dynamic brushstrokes. In Arles, he met the artists Eugène Boch, Dodge MacKnight and Christian Mourier-Petersen and befriended the postal official Joseph Roulin. Paul Gauguin came to join him in October, and they worked together in Arles for two months.
In late December, Vincent suffered a psychotic episode in which he cut off part of his ear and gave it to a prostitute. Gauguin went back to Paris soon afterward. Vincent was admitted to hospital and discharged on 7 January. In late January and February, however, he suffered two more attacks, and he returned to hospital for a longer spell. On 8 May 1889, he left Arles to be voluntarily committed to a psychiatric institution in Saint-Rémy de Provence.
</i>

https://www.vangoghroute.com/france/arles/

March - April, 1888
Oil on canvas
65 x 81 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0026V1962

 Vincent in Paris
(Summer 1887)

While in Asnières Van Gogh painted parks, restaurants and the Seine, including Bridges across the Seine at Asnières. In November 1887, Theo and Vincent befriended Paul Gauguin who had just arrived in Paris. Towards the end of the year, Vincent arranged an exhibition alongside Bernard, Anquetin, and probably Toulouse-Lautrec, at the Grand-Bouillon Restaurant du Chalet, 43 avenue de Clichy, Montmartre. In a contemporary account, Bernard wrote that the exhibition was ahead of anything else in Paris. There, Bernard and Anquetin sold their first paintings, and Van Gogh exchanged work with Gauguin. Discussions on art, artists, and their social situations started during this exhibition, continued and expanded to include visitors to the show, like Camille Pissarro and his son Lucien, Signac and Seurat. In February 1888, feeling worn out from life in Paris, Van Gogh left, having painted more than 200 paintings during his two years there. Hours before his departure, accompanied by Theo, he paid his first and only visit to Seurat in his studio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

Entrance of a restaurant in Asnieres
Summer 1887
Oil on canvas
18,5 x 27 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0079V1962

Vincent in Paris
(Summer 1887)

…How beautiful it is outdoors when everything is wet with rain — before — during — after the rain. I really ought not to miss a single shower. This morning I hung all the painted studies in the studio. I wish I could talk to you about them.
As I indeed expected and counted on while I was at work, I had to buy rather a lot extra, and the money is almost used up. I’ve now painted for a fortnight from early morning to late in the evening, so to speak, and if I continued like this it would work out too expensive as long as I’m not selling.

From a letter to his brother Theo.

Undergrowth
Summer 1887
Oil on canvas
32 x 46 cm
Utrecht: Centraal Museum
https://www.centraalmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/22123-sous-bois-vincent-van-gogh

 Vincent in Paris
(Summer 1887)

…the painter of the future is a colourist such as there hasn’t been before. Manet prepared the ground, but you’re well aware that the Impressionists have already used stronger colour than Manet’s.
This painter of the future, I can’t imagine him living in small restaurants, working with several false teeth and going into Zouave brothels like me.
But it seems to me that I’m in the right when I feel it will come in a later generation and that in our case we have to do what our means allow us in that direction, without having doubts and without flinching.

From a letter to his brother Theo.

Trees and underwood
Summer 1887
Oil on canvas
46 x 38 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0078V1962

 Vincent in Paris
(Summer 1887)

…don’t study and swot too much, because that makes for sterility. Enjoy yourself too much rather than too little, and don’t take art or love too seriously either — one can do little about it oneself, it’s mostly a matter of temperament. If I were living near you, I’d try to make you understand that it might be more practical for you to paint with me than to write, and that you might be more able to express your feelings that way.
From a letter to his sister Willemien, October 1887

Undergrowth
Summer 1887
Oil on canvas
46 x 38 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0079V1962

Vincent in Paris
(Summer 1887)

Rarely of late has the stillness, nature alone, so appealed to me. Sometimes it’s precisely those spots where one no longer feels anything of what’s known as the civilized world and has definitely left all that behind — sometimes it’s precisely those spots that one needs to achieve calm. Only I would have wished to have you there too, because I think you would have gained the same impression…
 From a letter to his brother Theo.

Trees and Undergrowth
Summer 1887
Oil on canvas
46,2 x 55,2
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum

 

Vincent in Paris
(Summer 1887)
 

Van Gogh, who "particularly admired a poem written by Walt Whitman about the beauty in a blade of grass", began painting waving stalks of wheat in Paris. In 1887, he made Wheat Field with a Lark where Impressionist influences are reflected in his use of color and management of light and shadow. Brush strokes are made to reflect the objects, like the stalks of wheat. The work reflects the motion of the wheat blowing in the wind, the lark flying and the clouds streaking from the currents in the sky.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_Fields

Wheat field with poppies and lark
Summer 1887
Oil on canvas
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0197V1962

Vincent in Paris
(Summer 1887)
 

I saw (Père) Tanguy yesterday and he put a canvas I had just done in his window, I’ve done four since you left, and I have a big one on the go. I’m well aware that these big, long canvases are hard to sell, but in time people will see that there’s open air and good cheer in them. Now the whole lot will make a decoration for a dining room or a house in the country.

From a letter to Theo van Gogh, Date: Paris, between about Saturday, 23 and about Monday, 25 July 1887

Moestuinen op Montmartre 

(Kitchen Gardens on Montmartre)

June - July 1887
Oil on canvas
96 x 120 cm
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

https://www.stedelijk.nl/en/collection/2188-vincent-van-gogh-moestuinen-op-montmartre

 Vincent in Paris

My own fortunes dictate above all that I’m making rapid progress in growing up into a little old man, you know, with wrinkles, with a bristly beard, with a number of false teeth &c.
But what does that matter? I have a dirty and difficult occupation, painting, and if I weren’t as I am I wouldn’t paint, but being as I am I often work with pleasure, and I see the possibility glimmering through of making paintings in which there’s some youth and freshness, although my own youth is one of those things I’ve lost. If I didn’t have Theo it wouldn’t be possible for me to do justice to my work, but because I have him as a friend I believe that I’ll make more progress and that things will run their course. It’s my plan to go to the south for a while, as soon as I can, where there’s even more colour and even more sun.

From a letter to his sister, Willemien van Gogh, Paris, late October 1887

Road on the outskirts of Paris with a male figure with a spade
June - July 1887
Oil on canvas
48 x 73 cm
Private collection

Vincent in Paris
(Spring 1887)

Vincent van Gogh painted A Woman Walking in a Garden in 1887. The painting is aptly named as it depicts a woman walking through a garden, surrounded by greenery and hints of red and yellow flowers. Unfortunately we can find no clue as to who the woman is. Van Gogh’s letters usually provide many clues however, there are not many letters from Van Gogh in 1887 as he lived in Paris with Theo, and Theo was the recipient of the majority of Van Gogh letters that are on record today. The woman in the painting is a mystery.

https://blog.vangoghgallery.com/index.php/en/2014/10/03/a-woman-walking-in-a-garden-a-readers-question/

A Woman Walking in a Garden
June - July 1887
Oil on canvas
51 x 62,5 cm
Private collection
On June 20, 2005 the painting was sold at a Sotheby’s sale in London and is now held in a private collection.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2005/impressionist-modern-art-evening-sale-l05007/lot.17.html

 Vincent in Paris
(Spring 1887)
 

The woodland scene genre, or "sous-bois" in French for undergrowth, was popular with artists from the Barbizon School and Impressionists.
Rather than painting landscapes from afar like traditional painters, 19th-century rural painters climbed or walked into forested areas for a close view of wooded scenes. Paintings of the sous-bois, evoking the trees and grassy undergrowth, were often made vertically on canvas, as opposed to horizontal views of sweeping landscapes. In a sous-bois, the sky is barely visible, just a glimpse of sky sometimes penetrating the branches. This type of composition was rare before the 19th century when artists of the Barbizon School made paintings of forested areas in the Fontainebleau region of France. Close to the subject of the painting, artists painting sous-bois capture their experience in the forested scene. In German, the painting of interior forests was called Waldinneres, meaning enclosed woodland space.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trees_and_Undergrowth

Path in the Woods
May - July 1887
Oil on canvas
45,3 x 37,7 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0080V1962

Vincent in Paris
(Spring 1887)
 

While in Paris, Van Gogh sees the work of the impressionists for the first time. He realizes that his palette is dark and old-fashioned and begins experimenting with lighter colours and different painting techniques. He also becomes interested in Japanese art and starts collecting Japanese prints together with his brother Theo.

These developments are reflected in Patch of grass. For this, Van Gogh chooses a close-up of a field of grass, a composition that also occurs frequently in Japanese prints. He zooms in on each individual blade of grass and flower and paints them very detailed and with great refinement in a light and colourful palette.

Van Gogh reuses a canvas that he’d already painted some two and a half years earlier in Nuenen: x-ray photos reveal the head of a woman with a cap under Patch of grass. The strong contrast between the sombre use of colour in his Nuenen period and his colourful and light palette in Paris is remarkable. Thus, his rapid and radical development in style is literally incorporated in this painting.

https://krollermuller.nl/en/vincent-van-gogh-patch-of-grass-1

Patch of grass
April-June 1887
Oil on canvas
30,8 × 40,8 cm
Kröller-Müller Museum
https://krollermuller.nl/vincent-van-gogh-grasgrond-1

Patch of grass, underpainting

Vincent in Paris
(Spring 1887)
 

The Seine (Latin: Sequana) is named for its snake-like course from inland France to the English Channel at Le Havre. Numerous locks and bridges are found in the river Seine. The Seine is rich in history, provides commercial navigation and has been a source of inspiration to artists for centuries. For more than 4,500 years, the Seine has provided a means of transportation. As Paris grew, the Seine was important for trade of commodities such as firewood, grain and wine. Efficient travel, though, was not possible until canals were added and river depths were controlled in the mid to late 19th century. Many of key Paris buildings and monuments are located along the Seine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seine_(Van_Gogh_series)

Banks of the Seine with the Pont de Clichy in the Spring
1887
Oil on Canvas
48,2 x 57,1 cm
Dallas Museum of Art

 

 Vincent in Paris
(Spring 1887)
 

I don’t want to be one of the melancholics or those who become sour and bitter and morbid. To understand all is to forgive all,18 and I believe that if we knew everything we’d arrive at a certain serenity. Now having this serenity as much as possible, even when one knows — little — nothing — for certain, is perhaps a better remedy against all ills than what’s sold in the chemist’s. A lot comes of its own accord, one grows and develops of one’s own accord.

From a letter to his sister, Willemien van Gogh, Paris, late October 1887

Horse Chestnut Tree in Blossom
May 1887
Oil on canvas
55,8 x 56,5
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0126V1962

 <b>Vincent in Paris</b>
(Spring 1887)


In the spring of 1887 Vincent had an affair with Agostina Segatori (1841–1910). She ran Le Tambourin, a restaurant and cabaret at 62 Boulevard de Clichy in Montmartre that was popular with artists.
He gave her floral still lifes to display in the café, hoping people would buy them, but no one did. When Le Tambourin went bankrupt in the summer of 1887, Vincent's paintings were probably auctioned off.

Basket of Pansies
May 1887
Oil on canvas
46 x 55 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0180V1962

The basket of pansies is on a stool shaped like a tambourine. Such stools could be found in the Café du Tambourin. The same stools are also visible in the portrait Vincent painted of Agostina.

https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0017V1962

 

After the bankruptcy Le Tambourin was called Le Cabaret des Quat-z-arts

Vincent in Paris

(Spring 1887)
 

Last year I painted almost nothing but flowers to accustom myself to a colour other than grey, that’s to say pink, soft or bright green, light blue, violet, yellow, orange, fine red. And when I painted landscape in Asnières this summer I saw more colour in it than before. I’m studying this now in portraits.

From a letter to his sister, Willemien van Gogh, Paris, late October 1887

Garden in Montmarte with lovers
1887
Oil on canvas
75 x 112,5 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/s0019v1962

Vincent in Paris
(Spring 1887)

 In the spring of 1887 Vincent Van Gogh stayed with Émile Bernard and his parents in Asnières and the budding spring seemed to trigger an awakening within van Gogh where he experimented with the genres to develop his personal style. In a country setting, undergoing industrialization, van Gogh was able to depict his reverence for rural life and express concern about encroachment of industrialization. With new techniques, van Gogh produced paintings evoked tenderness of couples taking a walk in the park or social commentary about the ways in which factories affected country life. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asnières_(Van_Gogh_series)

Square Saint-Pierre bij zonsondergang (Square Saint-Pierre at Sunset)
May 1887
Oil on canvas on cardboard
33 x 42 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/s0098V1962

It takes a while before you realize what is so different about this painting: Van Gogh made the sky predominantly yellow and the foreground blue. This is how he painted the nightfall. The three figures between the trees are no more than shadows. It is easy to see that the Paris Square Saint-Pierre was a relatively new park in Van Gogh's time. The trees are still young. It is now called Square Louise-Michel and lies at the foot of the Sacré Coeur basilica, now one of the most famous churches in Paris. It was under construction at the time.

 

The square Louise-Michel as you can see it on Google streetview

Vincent in Paris
(Spring 1887)
 

Asnières, now named Asnières-sur-Seine, is the subject and location of paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in 1887. The works, which include parks, restaurants, riverside settings and factories, mark a breakthrough in van Gogh's artistic development. In the Netherlands his work was shaped by great Dutch masters as well as Anton Mauve a Dutch realist painter who was a leading member of the Hague School and a significant early influence on his cousin-in-law van Gogh. In Paris van Gogh was exposed to and influenced by Impressionism, Symbolism, Pointillism, and Japanese woodblock print genres. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asnières_(Van_Gogh_series)

Park at Asnieres in Spring
1887
Oil on canvas
50 x 65 cm
Private collection

Vincent in Paris
(March -April 1887)
 

Conflicts arose between the brothers. At the end of 1886 Theo found living with Vincent to be "almost unbearable". By early 1887, they were again at peace, and Vincent had moved to Asnières (Pronouned: A-nee-air), a northwestern suburb of Paris, where he got to know Signac. He adopted elements of Pointillism, a technique in which a multitude of small coloured dots are applied to the canvas so that when seen from a distance they create an optical blend of hues. The style stresses the ability of complementary colours – including blue and orange – to form vibrant contrasts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

Flowerpot with Chives
January - February 1887
Oil on canvas
31,9 x 22 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0183V1962

 I left a lot of clues in yesterdays post so I can assume that everybody knows now we are talking about Vincent Van Gogh.

Vincent Van Gogh
(30 March 1853 - 29 July 1890)
 

In 1886, Vincent moved to Paris where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still life and landscape. His paintings grew brighter as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the South of France in 1888. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh

Montmartre: Quarry, the Mills
Autumn 1886
Oil on canvas
32 x 41 cm
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum

From a letter by Theo to  Caroline van Stockum-Haanebeek about the apartment in Montmartre on 10 July 1887: 

As you may know, I am living with my brother Vincent, who is studying painting with indefatigable diligence. Since he needs quite a lot of space for his work, we are living in quite a large apartment in Montmartre (rue Lepic 54) which, as you know, is a suburb of Paris built up against a hill. The remarkable thing about our flat is that from the windows we have a magnificent view across the city with the hills of Meudon, St-Cloud etc. on the horizon, and a piece of sky above it that is almost as big as when one stands on the dunes. With the different effects created by the variations in the sky it is a subject for I don’t know how many paintings.

 
www.vangoghletters.org

Rue Lepic 54 on Google streetview

 

(1886)
 

Our artist was born into an upper-middle-class family. As a child he was serious, quiet and thoughtful. He began drawing at an early age and as a young man worked as an art dealer, often traveling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881, having returned home to his parents. His younger brother supported him financially; the two kept a long correspondence by letter.

Kingfisher
Second half 1886
Oil on canvas
Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum

 

From a letter to his brother:

I say that it’s a terrible pity that here there’s no enthusiasm, so to speak, for the art that’s most suitable for the common people.
If the painters were to close ranks to ensure that their work (which, after all, is made for the people, in my view — at least I believe that is the highest, noblest vocation for any artist) could also come into the hands of the people and was put within everyone’s reach, that would be something that would produce the same results as were produced in the first years of The Graphic.

Every month I choose a theme and try to post as many different artists as there are days.
But for the month’s July and August of 2022 I’m once again going to focus on one artist.
A man who in a decade created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life.
This man is one of the most famous artists, so it will not be much of a guessing game. I’ll try to post lesser known works by him, using an extra filter, an extra theme but that will also be clear after a couple of days. I will also be focusing on the last 4 years of his life and I shall post them chronologically starting in 1886.
Enjoy!


(30 March 1853 - 29 July 1890)
 

 Who rejoices in the green of the pine trees and cedar and ivy and holly and moss in the winter? Dry wood gives more heat, bright fire and light when it is lit than green wood does. There is no fear in Love, but perfect love shutteth out fear.

From a letter to his brother.

Lane at the Jardin du Luxembourg
June-July 1886
Oil on canvas
27,5 x 46 cm
Williamstown: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute