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This canvas was the first one Gauguin painted during the two months he spent in Provence with Vincent van Gogh in 1888, just after his productive summer in Pont-Aven. Gauguin had rebelled against Impressionism's reliance on the visible world, and he altered nature's shapes and colors to suggest his own more subjective reaction to the landscape.
In this composition, however, Gauguin focuses on forms and structure. While the rural subject and acidic colors show the influence of van Gogh, this image is more indebted to Paul Cézanne. In his careful integration of the haystack and farm buildings, Gauguin has echoed Cézanne's emphasis on geometric form.
In late 1888, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh lived and worked together in Provence, briefly realizing Van Gogh's fervent desire for an artistic fraternity he called the Studio of the South. Gauguin arrived in Arles at the end of October, traveling directly from Pont-Aven.
Documents and technical analysis have established that Landscape near Arles was the first work Gauguin undertook during his sojourn. Painted on a linen canvas provided by Van Gogh, the subject is drawn from their first excursion to the plains of the Crau, one of Van Gogh's favorite areas. It features a typical Provençal mas, or farmhouse; the cypress trees common in the region; and a large haystack appropriate for the harvest season. While the rural subject and acid colors recall Van Gogh's taste, the painting is far more indebted to the work of Paul Cézanne, an artist Gauguin revered. Here, he echos Cézanne's emphasis on geometric forms. By locking the clean shapes of haystack and farm buildings into a firm network of carefully placed brushstrokes, Gauguin constructed a highly ordered environment. Distinctly different from Van Gogh's more impetuously produced paintings, Landscape near Arles is a surprisingly calm product of an intense interlude shared by two strong personalities.
Unbeknownst to the public, two men accomplished in that period a colossal amount of work, useful to both of them. Perhaps to others as well? Some things bear fruit.-Paul Gauguin, 1903
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