1888, Vincent van Gogh, The Public Garden -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the museum label: Van Gogh had just brought his inspired vision to bear on the cypresses in the Poet's Garden decoration - going out on a limb to show Gauguin "something new" and to demonstrate "beyond any doubt my originality" - when he took up this painting, apparently eager to put the gains he had made into practice. Finding the subject too "beautiful" to pass up, even though he had "sworn not to work," he set up his easel in a different, more pedestrian part of the park that was lined with benches and a gravel path. He proceeded to paint this "autumn garden" anchored by "two bottle-green and bottle-shaped cypresses," using for the first time the color term he would later reserve for these trees - a descriptor fittingly co-opted from Gauguin, who arrived the next day. Gauguin's stay in Arles (October 23-December 23, 1888) came to an abrupt, and infamous, end, after which Van Gogh sought treatment in the local hospital, for both his ear and his faltering mental health, before decamping for the asylum in nearby Saint-Rémy.
Link to a high-resolution close-up photo of details from this painting.
Link to other paintings from “Van Gogh’s Cypresses.”
Link to other van Gogh paintings.
1888, Vincent van Gogh, The Public Garden -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the museum label: Van Gogh had just brought his inspired vision to bear on the cypresses in the Poet's Garden decoration - going out on a limb to show Gauguin "something new" and to demonstrate "beyond any doubt my originality" - when he took up this painting, apparently eager to put the gains he had made into practice. Finding the subject too "beautiful" to pass up, even though he had "sworn not to work," he set up his easel in a different, more pedestrian part of the park that was lined with benches and a gravel path. He proceeded to paint this "autumn garden" anchored by "two bottle-green and bottle-shaped cypresses," using for the first time the color term he would later reserve for these trees - a descriptor fittingly co-opted from Gauguin, who arrived the next day. Gauguin's stay in Arles (October 23-December 23, 1888) came to an abrupt, and infamous, end, after which Van Gogh sought treatment in the local hospital, for both his ear and his faltering mental health, before decamping for the asylum in nearby Saint-Rémy.
Link to a high-resolution close-up photo of details from this painting.
Link to other paintings from “Van Gogh’s Cypresses.”
Link to other van Gogh paintings.