Travel Reference
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Arles (Feb 1888-May 1889): Sunlight, Beauty,
and Madness
Winter was just turning to spring when Vincent arrived in Arles,
near the French Riviera. After the dreary Paris winter, the colors
of springtime overwhelmed him. The blossoming trees inspired
him to paint canvas after canvas, drenched in sunlight.
The Yellow House (a.k.a. The Street, 1888)
“It is my intention...to go temporarily to the South, where
there is even more color, even more sun.”
—Vincent van Gogh
Vincent rented this house with the green shutters. (He ate at the
pink café next door.) Look at that blue sky! He painted in a frenzy,
working feverishly to try and take it
all in. For the next nine months, he
produced an explosion of canvases,
working very quickly when the mood
possessed him. His unique style evolved
beyond the Impressionists'—thicker
paint, stronger outlines, brighter col-
ors (often applied right from the paint
tube), and swirling brushwork that
makes even inanimate objects pulse and vibrate with life.
Sunflowers. (1889)
“The worse I get along with people, the more I learn to have
faith in Nature and concentrate on her.”
—Vincent van Gogh
Vincent saw sunflowers as his signature
subject, and he painted a half-dozen
versions of them, each a study in
intense yellow. If he signed the work
(see the “V. G.” on the vase), it means
he was proud of it.
Even a simple work like these
Sunflowers bursts with life. Different
people see different things in
Sunflowers. Is it a happy painting, or
is it a melancholy one? Take your own
emotional temperature and see.
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