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."
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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