Falling Autumn Leaves
Encyclopedia
Fall of Leaves or Falling Autumn Leaves is a pair of paintings (in French pendants, i. e. counterparts) by the Dutch
painter Vincent van Gogh
executed during the two months he shared his studio in Arles with his friend and mentor Paul Gauguin
, as well as the subjects they chose.
joins Van Gogh in Arles in October 1888. Both were intent on depicting a "non-naturalist landscape". The paintings are of the first works that van Gogh and Gauguin painted following Gauguin's arrival.
Van Gogh and Gauguin visited an ancient Roman necropolis , "Les Alyscamps", which had been built by the Romans outside city walls. Over time the grounds were overtaken by factories and the railroad, leaving the Allee des Tombeaux, the avenue of tombs, a lane of shady poplar trees that led to a Romanesque chapel.
Van Gogh described the collaborative process as a pooling of thoughts and techniques where each artist creates their own unique work that is different, yet complements one another. Van Gogh believed that his pair of paintings Falling Autumn Leaves was just such a collaborative effort influenced by his own ideas as well as those of Gauguin and Bernard.
The paintings were made on Gauguin's jute which with Van Gogh’s brushstroke made a finished tapestry-like texture. The high vantage point represented in the work resembled that of Gauguin's Vision. Creating a composition of a landscape viewed through the trunks of trees was something used previously by Bernard. Van Gogh used complementary, contrasting colors to intensify the effect of each color. The blue poplar trunks against the yellow path of leaves. Green used against red. Violet was paired with apricot. To his sister, Van Gogh wrote of selection and placement of contrasting colors "which cause each other to shine brilliantly, which form a couple, which complete each other like man and woman."
Van Gog's imagination created the figures in the paintings. In one, a couple of a thin man with an umbrella is paired with a large woman, much like Van Gogh’s image of a woman he might settle down with. On the lane is also a red-dressed woman. The other painting holds a couple who walk along the lane between stone sarcophagi, a yellow sunset at their backs.
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Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
painter Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
executed during the two months he shared his studio in Arles with his friend and mentor Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
, as well as the subjects they chose.
Les Alyscamps
Following months of correspondence, Paul GauguinPaul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
joins Van Gogh in Arles in October 1888. Both were intent on depicting a "non-naturalist landscape". The paintings are of the first works that van Gogh and Gauguin painted following Gauguin's arrival.
Van Gogh and Gauguin visited an ancient Roman necropolis , "Les Alyscamps", which had been built by the Romans outside city walls. Over time the grounds were overtaken by factories and the railroad, leaving the Allee des Tombeaux, the avenue of tombs, a lane of shady poplar trees that led to a Romanesque chapel.
The paintings
During a period of bad weather Van Gogh worked on a second pair of "Les Alyscamps" paintings, which were taken from a vantage point above the lane and looking through the poplar trees, made in the studio. The yellow-orange of the leaves contrast to the violet-blue trunks of the poplar trees. This painting, made shortly after Gauguin's arrival in Arles, was unique to Van Gogh's body of work and representative of the artistic achievements found by two great artists working together. To Émile BernardÉmile Bernard
Émile Henri Bernard is known as a Post-Impressionist painter who had artistic friendships with Van Gogh, Gauguin and Eugene Boch, and at a later time, Cézanne. Most of his notable work was accomplished at a young age, in the years 1886 through 1897. He is also associated with Cloisonnism and...
Van Gogh described the collaborative process as a pooling of thoughts and techniques where each artist creates their own unique work that is different, yet complements one another. Van Gogh believed that his pair of paintings Falling Autumn Leaves was just such a collaborative effort influenced by his own ideas as well as those of Gauguin and Bernard.
The paintings were made on Gauguin's jute which with Van Gogh’s brushstroke made a finished tapestry-like texture. The high vantage point represented in the work resembled that of Gauguin's Vision. Creating a composition of a landscape viewed through the trunks of trees was something used previously by Bernard. Van Gogh used complementary, contrasting colors to intensify the effect of each color. The blue poplar trunks against the yellow path of leaves. Green used against red. Violet was paired with apricot. To his sister, Van Gogh wrote of selection and placement of contrasting colors "which cause each other to shine brilliantly, which form a couple, which complete each other like man and woman."
Van Gog's imagination created the figures in the paintings. In one, a couple of a thin man with an umbrella is paired with a large woman, much like Van Gogh’s image of a woman he might settle down with. On the lane is also a red-dressed woman. The other painting holds a couple who walk along the lane between stone sarcophagi, a yellow sunset at their backs.
Van Gogh's other Les Alyscamps paintings
Van Gogh made another pair of paintings at Les AlyscampsLes Alyscamps
Les Alyscamps is a pair of paintings by Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. Painted in 1888 in Arles, France, it depicts autumnal scenes in the Alyscamps, an ancient Roman necropolis in Arles which is lined with poplars and stone sarcophagi.Van Gogh also made another pair of paintings, Falling Autumn...
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