The Baby Marcelle Roulin - Arles, December 1888

This is the seventh post from the Roulin series. This is the third and final (?) portrait of young Marcelle. This is very similar to the first Marcelle portrait I posted, but noticed the white knuckles on the left hand - they are fully blended in on the other one.

There are additional pieces in the Roulin series to share in future posts. Considering how difficult it was to find models to sit for portraits (especially for cheap or for free), Van Gogh found a gold mine with the Roulin family!

The Baby Marcelle Roulin - Arles, December 1888

This is the sixth post from the Roulin series. There is one other portrait of Marcelle I'll be posting next time. The colors on this one are very unflattering (was this a study?  an incomplete attempt?)  Also, note the bracelet and pinky ring!

The Baby Marcelle Roulin - Arles, December 1888

This is the fifth post from the Roulin series. There are two other portraits of Marcelle I'll be posting in the coming weeks. Quite interesting to compare & contrast the three pieces!

Portrait of Camille Roulin - Arles, November-December 1888

This is the fourth post from the Roulin series.  It's interesting to compare the two Camille portraits side by side.

Portrait of Camille Roulin - Arles, November-December 1888

This is the third post from the Roulin series.  Van Gogh never made mention of this particular painting in his letters.

Portrait of Armand Roulin - Arles, November-December

Last week, I posted the other portrait of the same young man. An interesting exercise in contrasts.

Portrait of Armand Roulin - Arles, November-December 1888

An excellent analysis of the Roulin paintings can be found here:

http://profkoslow.com/publications/vangogh.html

Montmartre near the Upper Mill - Paris, Autumn 1886

L'Arlésienne: Madame Ginoux with Books - Arles, November 1888 (or May 1889?)

This was one of six similar paintings executed by Van Gogh of Madame Ginoux.  

From howstuffworks.com: The portrait depicts Marie Ginoux, proprietress of the Café de la Gare on the Place Lamartine, who came to the Yellow House to sit for Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin in early November.

Marie Ginoux wore traditional Arlesienne costume and posed with an umbrella on the table before her. Vincent van Gogh completed one painting during the hour-long session, while Gauguin worked on a drawing. Vincent later made this version of his portrait, replacing the umbrella with a pile of books.

In a letter to his brother Theo in January 1889, Van Gogh writes briefly about this painting:

Did you during your hasty visit see the portrait of Mme. Ginoux in black and yellow? That portrait was painted in three-quarters of an hour. I must stop for the moment.

M. & Mme. Ginoux were friends of Van Gogh who ran the café which he eventually made famous in a painting entitled Le Café de Nuit and where he lodged when he first arrived in Arles.  He later moved to the "yellow house" in which he and Gaugin lived for a time, another place in Arles he immortalized on canvas.

The Red Vineyard - Arles, November 1888

From Wikipedia:  "The Red Vineyard is an oil painting by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, executed on a privately-primed Toile de 30 piece of burlap in early November 1888. It was supposedly the only piece sold by the artist while he was alive.

The Red Vineyard was exhibited for the first time at the annual exhibition of Les XX, 1890 in Brussels, and sold for 400 Francs (equal to about $1,000-1,050 today) to Anna Boch, an impressionist painter, member of Les XX and art collector from Belgium; Anna was the sister of Eugène Boch, another impressionist painter and a friend of Van Gogh, too, who had painted Boch's portrait (Le Peintre aux Étoiles) in Arles, in autumn 1888.

Like The Night Café, it was acquired by the famous Russian collector Sergei Shchukin, was then nationalised by the Bolsheviks with the rest of his collection and eventually passed to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

Ms. Boch, a painter herself, purchased many Impressionist paintings of the time and amassed a significant collection of those artists we admire today."

The Trinquetaille Bridge - Arles, November 1888, Oil on canvas

In a letter to his brother, Theo, Vincent describes the painting:

"The Trinquetaille bridge with all these steps is a canvas done on a grey morning, the stones, the asphalt, the pavements are grey; the sky, pale blue, the figures, coloured; and there is a sickly tree with yellow foliage. Two canvases in gray and blended tones, and two highly coloured ones."

Here is a modern day photograph of this same POV:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11247947@N06/1072169908

Les Alyscamps - Arles, November 1888, Oil on canvas

From howstuffworks.com: "Vincent van Gogh's 1888 work, Les Alyscamps, was completed shortly after Paul Gauguin arrived in Arles, France, when van Gogh took him to his favorite places to paint. They set up their easels together in the ancient cemetery known as Les Alyscamps (Elysian Fields). In contrast to Paul Gauguin's slow and deliberate process, Vincent van Gogh painted quickly, slashing his pigment on the canvas with thick, broad strokes. This difference became a point of contention between the painters; Vincent van Gogh worked in a rush of emotional energy in opposition to Gauguin's cerebral, considered approach."

Portrait of the Artist's Mother - October 1888, Oil on canvas

From the Norton Simon Museum site: "By the autumn of 1888, Vincent van Gogh had settled into his Yellow House in Arles, and at the end of October he would welcome Paul Gauguin in what he hoped would become an artist’s collective—a “Studio ...of the South.” Portraits were on the Dutchman’s mind, as not only had he exchanged self-portraits with Gauguin, Émile Bernard and Charles Laval that same month, but he had also set out to complete a series of family portraits. According to van Gogh’s letters to his brother, Theo, this portrait of their mother was based upon a black-and-white photograph. Of the portrait, the artist wrote, “I am doing a portrait of Mother for myself. I cannot stand the colorless photograph, and I am trying to do one in a harmony of color, as I see her in my memory.” Despite his intent to liven up her visage with his palette, van Gogh created a nearly monochromatic version—in a pallid, unnatural green. Nevertheless, this preeminent figure in the artist’s life sits attentive and proud—a model of middle-class respectability."

Portrait of Milliet, Second Lieutenant of the Zouaves - Arles, September 1888, Oil on Canvas

From Van Gogh's letters (courtesy of Webexhibits.org), a brief mention of this piece in a letter to Eugene Boch:    Your portrait is in my bedroom along with that of Milliet, the Zouave, which I have just finished. I should like to ask you to exchange one of your studies of the coal-mines for something of mine, - but stop! - I myself am going to send you a study first, when I am sure it is one which will seem wholly unknown to you. For if you saw the night studies you might like them better than the sunlight studies. Well, leave it to me. For I hope that our intercourse once started will last forever. In another, this time to Emile Bernard, he mentions the subject:   I know a second lieutenant in the Zouaves here; his name is Milliet. I give him drawing lessons - with my perspective frame - and he is beginning to do some drawings and, honestly, I've seen far worse. He is keen to learn, has been in Tonkin, etc… He is leaving for Africa in October. If you were to join the Zouaves, he would take you along and guarantee you a fairly large measure of freedom to paint, at least if you were willing to help him with his artistic plans. Might this be of any use to you? If so, let me know as soon as possible. And to his brother Theo, he writes:   I am also working on a portrait of Milliet, but he poses badly, or I may be at fault myself, which, however, I do not believe, as I am sorely in want of some studies of him, for he is a good-looking boy, very unconcerned and easy-going in his behaviour, and he would suit me damned well for the picture of a lover.

The Night Café in Arles - September 1888, Watercolor

From Van Gogh's letters (courtesy of Webexhibits.org), a letter to Theo says: In my picture of the “Night Café” I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. So I have tried to express, as it were, the powers of darkness in a low public house, by soft Louis XV green and malachite, contrasting with yellow-green and harsh blue-greens, and all this in an atmosphere like a devil's furnace, of pale sulphur. And all with an appearance of Japanese gaiety, and the good nature of Tartarin. But what would Monsieur Tersteeg say about this picture when he said before a Sisley - Sisley, the most discreet and gentle of the impressionists - “I can't help thinking that the artist who painted that was a little tipsy.” If he saw my picture, he would say that it was delirium tremens in full swing.